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The song and dance continued in court with the appearance of Dr Linda Liebenberg who appeared for the minister of police’s legal team.

She stated that she has done 13 000 autopsies and supervides thousands of others in her career.

She said that she projected images of Inge’s head wounds onto a screen then superimposed photos of the ornamental hammer over the wounds. She concluded that the dimensions matched.

She said that the other wounds could have been caused by the bottle-opener end or the flat side of the hammer.

But it was the last comments which seemed to destroy all her previous evidence. She said that the hammer could not be excluded as the murder weapon…but neither could the tens of thousands of other hammers in the Western Cape!

Before she even entered the witness box, Judge Anton Veldhuizen said that he did not know how much further her testimony would take the matter.

After the testimony he went on to say:

“Where does that take us?”

One has to wonder why they even bothered to put Dr Liebenberg on the stand if they knew that she would say that.

It feels to me that the state’s team does not expect to win this case, but are probably hoping that the R46-million claim for malicious prosecution will be drastically reduced.

To me it appears that not only will Fred win the case, but will also probably be rewarded close to, if not exactly what he is claiming.

Tags: Crime, Inge Lotz Murder by James
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Fred was on the stand yesterday describing the final hours he saw Inge.

His story is pretty much the same as during the trial, where he spoke about their last night together, his problems with his brother and the letters Inge gave him the next day.

He also spoke about his day at Old Mutual in Pinelands and how he was there until after 6pm. This included the so-called afternoon “window period” in which the State claimed in the criminal trial that he would have had opportunity to drive to Stellenbosch and commit the crime.

For me personally, this “window period” has never been properly explored. As I pointed out in the original trial, there is a couple hours window that are not accounted for.

I don’t think that Fred could have done the whole trip, murdered Inge, cleaned up, then gone back to work all composed as the window is very small. However this is still the one little detail which provides a niggle of doubt and I wish that it was addressed properly.

Many people I have spoken to are pretty supportive of Fred now. Most are talking about how the cops and prosecutors lied.

“The scary thing is that there seems to be no oversight of the prosecution beforehand that would have stopped this. Cope lie , proscutors can see they lie and know they will be found out to be lying yet still go ahead …. the logic is childish, never mind the bigger point that the whole lot of them are so morally bankrupt they wanted this guy in jail when they knew he did not do it” said one commenter.

When watching the developments surrounding the Anni Dewani murder case, you can see the cops making suggestions that her husband Shrien was involved – even though there is no evidence pointing there as of yet. Is this the same kind of thing?

One has to wonder how many innocent people are languishing in prison because of lying cops and prosecuters who do not expose the lies. One also has to wonder whether people like Agliotti are in the same ship.

Tags: Inge Lotz Murder by James
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Probably as a direct result of the current lawsuit by Fred van der Vyver against the police and prosecutors, it has been announced that the Hawks will be looking into the case.

Prof Jan Lotz has confirmed that he has been informed by the police commissioner that the matter had been referred to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations in Pretoria.

“It was my impression that there was no real action by police to bring this matter to a close.” he told reporters. “I am convinced that this was a premeditated murder, one that was well-planned and committed by someone close to her”.

“We believe it was probably one of five people, and I believe that all five of those people were at Inge’s funeral. What is needed, is that someone should sit down and really apply themselves to chasing the guilty party from his hiding place.”

“Whatever comes out that can help to identify the murderer, will give the answer and create the space for us and for Fred to go on with our lives.”

Let us hope and pray that the Hawks will investigate the case properly and bring the perpetrator to justice!

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Just as the civil suit brought by Fred van der Vyver gets underway, we hear that Juanita Lotz is being targeted by a sick individual.

Prof Jan Lotz said to reporters:

“It began in October last year, then abated for a while, and has now begun again.

“The messages effectively say that I was not Inge’s father, and that (deleted) was her father.

“It starts in the middle of the night and all times of the morning. To say that to a woman is probably going as low as you potentially could go.”

“You feel you’re dealing with something so appalling, so threatening… that it’s probably better to stay out of its way.”

The police had been alerted and he believed they knew the identity of the sender, but as of yet, no one had been arrested. How surprising!

But wait, it gets worse! Sources in the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions’ office differed as to whether the case was still being investigated….

It is disgusting that the police and prosecutors are not acting on this! Mrs Lotz does not deserve to be targeted by this sick person and it is the DUTY of the police to bring this individual to book.

In fact, in light of the current court case, they should be bending over backwards to catch the person.

The Lotz family will not be attending the civil court. Prof Lotz has said that he is not involved in the proceedings.

He was critical of the police saying:

“My wife and I spent 10 months in the (Western) Cape High Court… so it’s a place we wouldn’t want to visit again

“But the only way that this thing can be brought to a final conclusion, for Fred and ourselves, is for the killer to be found. It has to happen.

“We’ve waited for five years, and I’m sorry to be critical, but what we have experienced is total inactivity from the SAPS. I’m seeing nothing – no committed effort to get to the bottom of this.

“As far as my wife and I are concerned, the last five years have been frozen in time. It’s impossible to go on like this – but we will only be able to move on when the killer is found.”

Police – get of your @#$%$ asses and actually DO something about this!

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Yesterday saw Prof Gert Saayman, of the University of Pretoria testifying in the civil suit of Fred van der Vyver against the state and police.

Prof Saayman testified that the ornamental hammer which police say was the murder weapon was ‘unlikely’ to have been the weapon to murder Inge Lotz.

He told the court that the hammer had a striking surface only 22mm across, whereas the wounds to Inge’s skull were clearly much larger than this.

He went on to say that in his opinion, the wounds were rather caused by a rigid “linear or cylindrical” object.

Asked by Van der Vyver’s advocte Dup de Bruyn about the likelihood “on the probabilities” of the hammer being the murder weapon, he said: “No. Not used.”

Although this testimony is not yet as electrifying as Bodziak’s testimony, we could still hear more; particularly on the experiments the police conducted on the pig carcass.

At this point, one has to really wonder why the state did not settle this matter out of court. Surely they do not want their incompetance in this case to be highlighted once again?

The case continues.

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William (Bill) Bodziak took the stand to lash out at the police and their footprint evidence, lies they told and false reports written to implicate Fred van der Vyver as the suspect.

He testified that Superintendent Bruce Bartholomew flew to Florida in June 2006 to get his opinion on a bloodstain that Bartholomew had matched to a sports shoe belonging to Van der Vyver.

He tetified that the ‘evidence’ brought over by Bartholomew was woefully inadequate for him to form any opinion.

Asked by advocate Kosie Olivier whether there could have been a misunderstanding during the Florida consultation, Bodziak said he did not know how this was possible, because they had “over and over again” gone over the fact that there were no features in the mark that could be linked to the shoe.

He sent Bartholomew away to do further tests in south Africa.

Bartholomew arrived with the footwear and two CDs which contained the photographs of the blood marking and particularly the heel area of the shoe which Bartholomew said contained “sand grains” , they were not scaled and were only “3×5 inches (7,5cm to 12,5cm) big”.

“Bartholomew alleged there were three small pieces of debris (sand) lodged in the shoe and I explained to him that the debris was too deep in the shoe to make a marking,” said Bodziak, adding that it was these grains of sand that Bartholomew had theorised as one of the main links between the marking in the blood stain and the shoe.

Bartholomew believed that the “three white spots” in the blood had been made by the sand which was lodged in a 5mm deep groove, he said.
[Read more →]

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I do apologise for not writing earlier. I was out of the country and had limited access to the net, but I am back!

The long awaited ‘second trial’ in the Inge Lotz case is well underway. I say ‘second trial’ because most of us who have followed the case will be scrutinising everything said.

Will the spotlight on the police investigators and prosecution team give us further clues to the truth?

One thing that is blatantly obvious is that after 5 years of police inaction, we can infer that they still believe that Fred was their man. Is this mindset jeapardising any possibility of the real killer being caught?

“Prosecutors in the Inge Lotz trial were “deliberately deceived” by police investigating her case, who “withheld information” from them that would have stopped the prosecution of Lotz’s boyfriend, Fred van der Vyver.” according to Dup de Bruyn, the advocate for Fred van der Vyver on the opening day of the civil case for damages amounting to about R46 million.

“(Police) willfully made statements which were willfully false in material respects but for which the prosecution would not have been undertaken.”

Police had also “willfully made inadequate inquiries or none at all when the questions and inquiries cried out for investigation”.

“(They) dishonestly prejudiced the judgment of the prosecuting authority and in so doing, precluded an unfettered exercise of the prosecuting authority’s discretion,” De Bruyn said.

In the coming weeks, four witnesses will be called by the van der Vyver team:
[Read more →]

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FRUIT OF A POISONED TREE
A true story of murder and the miscarriage of justice

By: Antony Altbeker

(To be released in all major bookshops and on Kalahari.net by 24 May 2010)

In June 2005, Fred van der Vyver, a young actuary and the son of a wealthy Eastern Cape farming family, was charged with murdering his girlfriend, Inge Lotz, allegedly bludgeoning her to death with a hammer as she lay on a couch in her lounge.

The case against Van der Vyver seemed overwhelming. His behaviour at the time of the murder appeared suspicious and incriminating, and a letter, penned by Inge on the morning of her death, suggested that the two had been fighting.

But it was forensic evidence that seemed to prove his guilt: his fingerprints were found at the scene, one of his shoes was matched to a blood stain on the bathroom floor, and traces of blood were found on an ornamental hammer that had been given to him by the victim’s parents.

And yet, in one of the most sensational and controversial murder trials in South African legal history, Van der Vyver’s lawyers sought to turn the tables on the police, accusing them of fabricating evidence and lying to the judge.

In Fruit of a Poisoned Tree, prize-winning author Antony Altbeker takes you into the heat of this epic courtroom battle. Altbeker’s eye-witness account of the trial presents the reader with all the evidence and testimony of the trial, while also placing it in the context of a society and a justice system that are
being stretched to breaking point.
[Read more →]

Tags: Inge Lotz Murder by James
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Today I received this email along with a copy of the press release below:

………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

We would appreciate it if you would publish the enclosed press statement on behalf of our client in your publications as soon as possible.

We thank you in anticipation.

BRIAN LOWE
LOWE & PETERSEN ATTORNEYS
………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

LOTZ & LOTZ v FB van der Vyver

We have been requested by our client, Mr Fred van der Vyver, to issue the following statement:

For the past few months, a campaign has been waged in the press against our client Mr. Fred van der Vyver in which it has been stated and reported widely that Porfessor and Mrs. Lotz, the parents of Inge Lotz, have found “new evidence” against Mr van der Vyver. Most of these statements have been made by a Ms Dani Cohen as spokesperson for Prof & Mrs Lotz.

Among the statements so made is the allegation that “new, crucial evidence” has been found against Mr van der Vyver to “establish he murdered Inge”.

As a consequence of these press statements Counsel for Mr van der Vyver requested further particulars for trial to the claim instituted against him by Prof. and Mrs. Lotz, referring specifically to Ms Cohen’s statements and requesting the plaintiffs to set out fully what new material fact or facts plaintiffs will rely upon in their action.

In response to such request, the legal representatives of Prof. and Mrs. Lotz’s have replied as follows:

“There are no new material facts upon which the plaintiffs intend to rely.”

Both the request for particulars and the reply thereto are filed at Court.

A letter reserving Mr van der Vyver’s rights against Prof and Mrs Lotz, and Ms Cohen, in regard to the above defamatory statements and the damage that Mr van der Vyver is suffering, will soon be served on the attorneys of Prof and Mrs Lotz.

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Despite the fact that the courts found Fred van der Vyver not only ‘not guilty’ but also ‘innocent’ of murdering Inge Lotz, the parents of Inge are now suing Fred for approximately R4 million each!

Some people have claimed that this is similar to the OJ Simpson trial but there are big differences. In the OJ trial, there was always an element of doubt as to the juries findings. These doubts were based on race issues (evident in juror statements after the trial), evidence that was not presented and even some doubt concerning evidence that was presented in the trial. In the van der Vyver case, the case was far more compelling that he was in fact innocent of the charges.

Personally I think that suing after the case has been decided is wrong and really should not be allowed. I am talking about when a ‘not guilty’ verdict is reached only. A civil court could reach a different decision to a criminal court, because while the latter had to find a suspect guilty “beyond reasonable doubt”, a civil court could find a suspect guilty on “the balance of probabilities”. Doesnt this fly in the face of what a criminal trial is all about?

We all acknowledge the pain and suffering caused to victims families and we whole heartedly sympethise with them. However a civil trial, after the criminal trial has found a defendant ‘not guilty’, somehow suggests spite on the part of the victims family. It also hows that they are not satisfied with the result of the criminal trial, which of course in this case is to be expected. One wonders why they do not rather sue the police for running a shoddy investigation.

I do not think that the Lotz’s reached this decision on their own. As Dup de Bruyn, Fred’s advocate said, he knows who is behind this action and what their motive is. I feel that the Lotz family are now being used by other individuals in order to further their own agenda.

My personal feeling is that the Stellenbosch police are possibly behind it. If the civil action works in the Lotz’s favour, then they will be ‘redeemed’ in the eyes of not only the family but the community at large. This could be just a mere case of disaster management strategy. They can gain credibility because of it – a case of ‘the fish didn’t really get away’. This would somehow justify their investigation.

It would be very interesting if this motive did come out in the court case, because if it is the cops, they will have an aweful amount to lose on this gamble!

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