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Fred van der Vyver, the former old Mutual actuary accused of the murder of his girlfriend Inge Lotz was on Thursday found not guilty in the Cape High Court.

A packed public gallery loudly applauded the verdict, pronounced by Judge Deon van Zyl as the court adjourned for lunch.

Van der Vyver, who had been seated throughout the three hour judgement was ordered to stand before the judge pronounced the verdict.

As he heard the words, “you are found not guilty,” he took a deep breath and turned his head upwards as if saying a silent prayer and then forced back tears.

His senior counsel, Doep de Bruin, of Port Elizabeth, jumped from the defence bench into the dock to embrace the weeping man.

The judge said Van der Vyver had had no motive to murder his girlfriend, and that his alibi – that he had been at his workplace at the time of the murder – had to be accepted as reasonably true.

The judge said it would have been impossible for Van der Vyver to have left his workplace on the afternoon of the murder, to have gone to Lotz’s Stellenbosch home, to have attacked her and then to have returned to his office in the space of two hours.

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The Cape High Court is crowded with journalists and members of the public today to hear the long awaited judgement in the Inge Lotz murder case.

Fred van der Vyver who has been on trial for the murder is listening patiently as the judge goes over all the evidence.

At the time of writing, the judge has dismissed the ’shoeprint’ evidence which is surely a good start for Fred.

The judgement is expected to last all day and could even spill over to Monday. South African courts have a tradition of not hearing criminal trials on a Friday.

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All closing argument in the Fred van der Vyver trial ended on Tuesday with both the state and defence resting.

Judge Deon van Zyl said that he and his two assessors would deliver the judgement on November 29th.

In Tuesday’s proceedings, prosecutor Carien Teunissen presented to the court the State’s reply to the defence’s closing argument, which was delivered last Thursday.

Teunissen again called for Van der Vyver’s conviction on the charge of murder.

Under South African law, the state gets a ‘double shot’ in closing arguments, being able to reply to the defence’s closing arguments. The defence only gets one opportunity to close.

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Prosecutor Carine Teunissen began her second delivery of closing arguments in the trial of Fred Van der Vyver.

She began by speculating that the argument between Fred and Inge was probably a lot more serious than Fred made out on the stand. She said that this is backed up by the testimony of the ‘hell of a fight’ and the long letter, which in her opinion was not a love letter.

“It fits better with the unhappy partner in a relationship who had tried to placate the other and save what could be saved,” she said.

She went on to say that Fred had made a deliberate attempt to conceal the letter in the beginning of the investigation and had also not mentioned to anyone that Inge had been crying that morning.

Carine Teunissen argued that Fred, who initially chose not to testify and then took the stand only after his advocate had started delivering his closing argument, had contradicted himself in his testimony. He also adjusted his testimony to fit the facts and was deliberately vague on some aspects.

She ended off by saying that he was an unsatisfactory witness.

The trial continues …

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Fred van der Vyver’s mother wept in court yesterday at the conclusion of the lengthy trial. She breathed a visible sigh of relief as the court emptied at the end of the proceedings.

Carien has attended most of the court appearances with her husband Louis, which began more than a year ago. On Wednesday she stood at the back of the court with tears in her eyes, taking in deep breaths until she was comforted by a family friend.

Prosecutor Carine Theunissen had concluded the questioning in just over an hour, after asking for an early adjournment on Tuesday afternoon.

The case has now been postponed to 31 October. There will be a fresh round of closing arguments before Judge van Zyl.

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Fred van der Vyver said today in court that he never used the ornamental hammer that the state says was the murder weapon.

He told the court that Inge had given him the hammer as a Xmas gift back in 2004. He was in East London with Inge at his parents home when he unwrapped the gift, but put it under his seat and forgot about it.

When Inge was killed, the private investigator told him that a hammer had been found at her flat. He volunteered that he also had a hammer which he thought was in his bakkie. Later when he checked, he found it still under the seat.

Asked by prosecutor Carine Theunissen what his reaction was when the investigator told him about the hammer in the flat, Van der Vyver replied, “My reaction was precisely what I said to him.”

He said that although he drank on occasion, he never used the hammer to open anything and he had never taken it into his flat in Pinelands.

When police asked whether he had anything of value in the bakkie when they wanted to do forensic tests on it, he told them about the hammer.

Theunissen asked him whether he had ever touched the hammer with blood on his hands. Fred replied that he could never remember a time when he did.

Van der Vyver appeared confident and self-composed in the witness box, at one stage stopping Theunissen half-way through a question so he could comment on one aspect at a time.

The day started out dramatically when a press photographer took a photo of Fred in the court. Lead defence advocate Henri Viljoen objected strongly and raised the matter with Judge van Zyl. The judge said that he had told the newspaper, Die Burger, that they could only take photos with the permission of both the defence and the state.

Judge van Zyl then forbade the newspaper from publishing the photo and said that if it did, he would ensure the editor was brought before the court.

The case continues ….

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State advocate Carine Theunissen kicked off the court proceedings today by asking Fred whether he had been involved in the preparation for the trial. Fred answered that he had been.

She then asked whether he had read the witness statements, to which he asked her to be more specific. It appeared that she became irritated with him replying to her questions with questions.

She then asked whether Inge was “security conscious”.

“Mrs Lotz said that Inge always took care to lock her doors.”

Van der Vyver said he could not refute it.

Theunissen also questioned him in detail about whether Lotz put her cellphone on silent or vibrate, and whether he had ever been unable to get through to her.

Her questioning has a bearing on Van der Vyver’s testimony that he became worried about Lotz on the evening of her death when he was unable to reach her by phone at her Stellenbosch flat.

Fred told the court that on the evening of the 16 March, he became worried because he expected to speak to Inge and also expected her to be in her apartment. He did say that it was possible that Inge did sometimes go out without him knowing about it.

During the proceedings, Fred told the court about his work sessions at Old Mutual that he had attended in the days and hours before Inge was found murdered. He said that he and his colleagues were required to do training and that the day before he had done a presentation.

He then said that arrangements had been made so that he didn’t have to miss his morning classes at the university and that as usual he had spent the night at Inge’s apartment.

At one point Carine Theunissen chided Van der Vyver for speaking “particularly softly” – but was herself asked by the judge soon after to repeat a question he did not hear.

Fred became emotional when asked by defence advocate Viljoen about the SMS sent from his computer to Inge which had been signed “love you F”.

After composing himself, he testified that the SMS said that he had read the letter which Inge had given him that morning.

Viljoen then went chronologically through all the SMS and email communications to people that Fred had communicated with that day.

After the tea-break, while addressing the court about an email he began to type just prior to Inge’s body being found, Fred again broke down.

When asked by Viljoen if he had murdered Lotz, Van der Vyver directly and unemotionally answered: “No, I did not.”

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The defence shocked the court today by asking the Cape High Court to allow Fred van der Vyver to testify in his own defence. This surprise move comes in the middle of the defence’s final arguments.

The defence is yet to release a statement as to why they have decided on this at the final stages of the trial.

In many other cases, this move is usually decided on by the accused and is usually against the direction or advice of the defence team.

I will keep you all updated as I get further information on this.

The case was postponed to October 16 when the application will be argued, if it is opposed by the state.

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Monday saw the beginning of the final days of the van der Vyver trial. After a marathon run of 7 odd months, the final phase of the trial began: the closing arguments.

First off was Prosecutor Christhenus van der Vijver who presented the closing for the state.

The Prosecution:

van der Vijver began by saying that the circumstances of Inge’s murder clearly showed that the murderer was someone known to her.

He went on to say that there was a clear conflict between Fred and Inge, which Fred had tried to hide from the police.

The court, he said, could also not exclude the ornamental hammer found in Fred’s bakkie as the murder weapon.

Concerning the fingerprint allegedly found on the DVD, he rejected the defence claims of fraud.

The argument that a so-called “mishmash of dates” in police exhibit registers was indicative of a conspiracy did not hold water either.

“If there was an orchestrated attempt by the police to fabricate this evidence, one would expect much more care would have been taken to wipe out the tracks of this conspiracy,” Van der Vijver said.

van der Vijver then turned the floor over to the defence team.

The Defence:

Advocate Dup de Bruyn told the court that there was no acceptable evidence against his client relating to either the fingerprint or the shoeprint.

Further, there was no evidence linking his client to the ornamental hammer.

He also reminded the court that there was nothing to contradict Fred’s alibi that he was at work when the murder happened, and that there was no evidence of a ‘major row’ with Inge just before the murder.

de Bruyn said that there was overwhelming circumstantial evidence that Inge had been excited and exuberant on the morning of the murder – sending Fred loving messages.

The policeman who had lifted the controversial fingerprint had given three contrary statements of how he obtained the print, while none of the dates in the continuity registers agreed.

Contradictions were not necessarily an indication of fraud “but there comes a point where enough is enough”, he said.

The defence will continue with their argument tomorrow.

Take the poll on the right of this page and let us know how you think the court will rule.

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Paul Ryder, a chemist and footprint expert with Forensic Science Service, a state agency in the United Kingdom today shot down a local police officer’s opinion that a bloody mark left at the crime scene matched the sole of a show owned by Fred van der Vyver.

He said that the bloody mark was not consistent with a shoeprint in general or with Fred’s shoe in particular.

Ryder said: “In my opinion, the mark was not made by a shoe. It is more likely to have been made by a blood-stained implement carried into the bathroom and placed on the floor.”

The defence team had asked Ryder to compare the marks with photographs of the sports shoe print and from this he wrote two reports. However, he only saw the shoe in person on Sunday.

The defence disputes a claim by former state footprint expert, Bruce Bartholomew, that the shape of the mark and four dots corresponded with the shape of the sole and four grains of sand lodged in a groove.

Ryder said that he had studied the photo’s, statements by Barthomew and that of Peta Davitz of the police biology unit and other statements by Dr Rachel Adendorff (the district surgeon who performed the autopsy and told the police to look for a hammer). It is interesting to note at this point that Peta Davitz found no evidence of blood on the shoe.

In addition, Ryder corresponded with US footprint expert William Bodziak who also disputed the states evidence. When asked, Ryder stated that he had not been influenced by Bodziak’s opinions and he also denied that he was being influenced to come to certain conclusions by the defence.

Explaining why the mark was not made by a shoe, he said when a sole stained with blood was stepped on the blood would be forced to the edges of the pattern and into the sole’s grooves.

If a person walked with a bloody shoe, each impression would be fainter than the previous one. The stain would also show the pattern of the sole of the shoe/ This mark did not have any of these characteristics.

Further he said that the four grains of sand in the shoe were lodged too deeply in the shoe to make contact with the floor. So they could not have created the four dots which emerged after the chemical dye treatment.

The time the shoe was confiscated and the absence of blood on it also cast a shadow on the sand grain theory.

Prosecutor Carine Teunissen asked him if it was possible that the killer had taken off his shoe when he washed and put it down without noticing blood had spilled onto the sole. Ryder said he did not “quite follow” her scenario, but he thought the mark was most likely created by a bloodstained instrument that was dropped and fell on its side.

When asked for details regarding his observations, he said that he had not performed any experiments but had drawn his conclusions from the photo’s.

Judge Deon van Zyl commented that the shape of the mark did seem to match that of the shoe and asked Ryder to compare the shoe to a transparency of the mark and to testify about his findings later.

Comments:

I am not really sure what to feel about this.

Two eminent footprint experts have disputed the police theory but I can’t help to think that it could be flawed. If they only had access to photo’s of the shoe, this raises doubts regarding to the accuracy of their testimony.

How can they be sure of their findings when all they had to go on were the photo’s? I am sure this is why Judge van Zyl asked Ryder to examine things further.

My gut feeling from just reading the press reports is that this evidence is a little shaky for the defence. It is not entirely convincing. However there is still more testimony to come, so we shall see if things become more solid.

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