Pretoria – A pair of large, scuffed running shoes that police say they found hidden in a kennel at the home of alleged axeman Joseph Ntshongwana took centre stage at his trial on Tuesday when a police expert insisted that a toecap, found near one of his alleged victims, was a “perfect match” for the right shoe.
Major Ze-Ev Krein, the chief forensic analyst at the police forensic science laboratory, was adamant that his “physical match” of the shoe and the toecap was an “exact science” and, in fact, it trumped any other scientific proof.
Ntshongwana, a former Blue Bulls flanker, is standing trial before Acting Judge Irfaan Khalil in the Durban High Court charged with four murders, in which three of his alleged victims were decapitated, two attempted murders and rape and kidnapping committed between November 2010 and March 2011.
He has pleaded not guilty, claiming that he suffers from delusions and lacks criminal capacity. But the State has labelled him a serial killer and is seeking to prove that he knew what he was doing because he ran away from crime scenes and hid evidence.
Some evidence, including the Nike Zoom Air shoes in court on Tuesday, were allegedly found in a dog kennel outside the bedroom window of his Yellowwood Park home on the night of his arrest.
It is alleged that a toecap was found weeks later, next to the hand of a decomposed, decapitated body – which has not been identified – in bush near Ntshongwana’s home.
Krein said he had received the shoes and the toecap in separate sealed bags, with the brief to establish if the toecap had originated from the shoe.
His opinion, that it had, was supported by senior colleagues at the laboratory. Under cross-examination by defence attorney Themba Mjoli, he said: “A physical match is regarded as proof in the scientific world.”
This was because when something broke, it was random. “If a water jug breaks, it will break in a certain unique way and, if the fragments fit together, then it is a physical fit.”
Mjoli said he would argue that the fit had not been proved and Krein’s report was “inconclusive”.
The defence agreed on Tuesday that all crime scene and autopsy pictures could be admitted as evidence without calling those who had taken them.
Included in the photographs was one of the dog kennel, which the defence had initially objected to, indicating suspicion over its authenticity.
The defence will make admissions about DNA evidence which allegedly linked blood found on Ntshongwana’s hired car to three of his alleged victims.
Pretoria News
