Steeped in Blood

by David Klatzow

  The case was heard in Cape Town. I decided to get Di Maio to testify instead of me, and he did well. He showed the court that the fatal shot had to have been a contact shot. He demonstrated that all the reflexes of someone who tripped would not have produced the picture we had in front of us. He was extremely convincing. When I had seen which judge was on the bench and observed her body language and attitude, however, I was filled with foreboding. At the break, within ninety minutes of the start of the case, I said to our counsel, ‘You can stand on your head in front of our judge and it won’t make any difference. You are going to lose this case.’

  The opposing side had in their camp Lionel Smith, former professor of forensic medicine at UCT, and Wollie Wolmarans, former police ballistics expert. All they had were theories, and all that they attempted to do was to disprove our contention that Jamie had put the gun under his chin and pulled the trigger. The judge found that Jamie had picked up the gun to shoot a piet-my-vrou – a redchested cuckoo – in the pitch-darkness. He had been walking and had tripped. Instead of looking down and stretching his hands out to break his fall, he had clutched the gun to his chest and looked up, and somehow the weapon had accidentally discharged. She seemed to accept the explanation by Wolmarans that the dog could have pulled the trigger by making no comment about this suggestion. Her view was that Jamie Verhoef’s death was an accident, not suicide.

  The insurance company was at a loss, and I told them that if they didn’t fight this to the bitter end, they might as well not have a suicide waiver in their policy documents. The case ended up in the Supreme Court of Appeal, where the judges took a much more rational view, making a few unflattering comments about the previous judge’s understanding of ballistics and shootings. We won the case on appeal.

  (The death of Jamie Verhoef vividly illustrates the problems with post-mortem reports outlined in Chapter 16: there were two reports written, with conflicting descriptions of the wound. This played a large role in the protracted insurance claim.)

  I will never forget that farm in Beaufort West – it felt like the saddest, loneliest place on earth. Sometimes, if you sit in a cemetery, that same spirit of desolation comes over you – the feeling of death. And it was so quiet. The only sound was that of a lone bird. After Jamie killed himself, it would have been a terrible place for his father to go. All the money in the world cannot make up for the tragic loss of his son.

  CHAPTER 19

  TILL DEATH US DO PART

  ‘The entirety of one’s adult life is a series of personal choices, decisions. If we can accept this totally, then we become free people. To the extent that we do not accept this we will forever feel ourselves victims.’

  – M. SCOTT PECK,

  American psychiatrist and author, The Road Less Traveled

  Life does not always go as planned, and the same can be said of relationships. When matters reach breaking point, we as human beings can react in many ways – one of which is resorting to murder, or attempted murder.

  Murdering your husband or wife may be a crime of passion, committed in a moment of intense emotion, or it may be well planned and premeditated. That is the work of forensic science – piecing together the left-behind evidence of a murder to arrive at the truth, or as close to the truth as possible.

  The ‘three-in-a-bed’ murder trial in 1987 was a sizzling case that caught the attention and imagination of the public, as it exposed the ‘other side’ of life behind high walls and manicured lawns. Thirty-five-year-old Maria Krebs went on trial in March 1989 for the murder of her husband, and the court had to decide whether the murder was as a result of abuse, self-defence or financial motivation. What made it even more sensational was that Maria Krebs was also on trial for the attempted murder of ‘Pat’ du Preez, a hooker, who was present in the couple’s company and bed on the night of the murder.

  Ralf and Maria Krebs lived a comfortable life in Bedfordview, Johannesburg, with their children, aged three and five at the time. Ralf Krebs was no saint – a week before the murder, he confessed to his wife that he was having an affair. Maria testified that he had, in fact, contracted pubic lice from this encounter.

  The day of 21 October 1987 was rather uneventful. According to the evidence presented in court, at around 8 p.m. the children were put to bed and the couple made love, Ralf telling Maria how much he loved her and that he never wanted to hurt her. According to Maria, once they were finished, at around 10 p.m., Ralf informed her that he wanted her to get over her hang-ups about him having sex with other women. According to him, it was just sex, not love. He said that he would like to share this experience with her. This was not the first time Ralf had wanted another woman in their bed. Some time after Maria’s hysterectomy, he’d wanted to have sex with her and she had said it was too painful, so he told her to provide an alternative. While holding a gun to her head, he made her call an escort agency to get a girl brought over. Maria was so distressed after this incident that she went to see a psychiatrist, who then wanted to see Ralf. He never went.

  Maria was petrified of Ralf, as he had used physical violence against her previously, when he had been drinking. That October evening, as Ralf looked in the newspaper for an escort agency, Maria reluctantly agreed to make the call. He dialled the number of Playmates Escort Agency and gave his wife the receiver so that she could speak to them. She identified herself and requested that a ‘lady’ be sent over. A short while later, the doorbell rang and ‘Pat’ du Preez arrived.

  Maria was still in bed, naked, and Ralf asked her if she had money in her purse. She replied that she did, and Ralf took out about forty rand. He went downstairs and paid George, the driver, before coming back upstairs with Pat. Maria lay under the covers, still naked, and perplexed as to what would happen next, while Ralf poured wine for everyone and took off his dressing gown.

  Pat came towards Maria, who pushed her away in fear, screaming that she didn’t want to be touched. Ralf grabbed her and tried to pry her legs apart. When Maria looked again, Ralf was on top of Pat. She grabbed a vase and smashed it over Ralf’s shoulder, then took the wine bottle out of the cooler and hit him on the head with it.

  Ralf was furious, and Maria jumped off the bed and fled the room in terror. A violent argument ensued, and Maria ran through the house with Ralf chasing her, brandishing a .38 revolver. Between two bedrooms of the house was a shared shower cubicle that had Georgian wire glass on each side, and it was here that Maria fled, locking herself in. As she cowered on the shower floor, Ralf tried to break the glass with the revolver. He was unable to make much of a hole in the strong glass, but he damaged it severely. He left that side of the shower, thinking that he could get to her from the other side, from the adjacent bedroom. But he made the fatal mistake of leaving the revolver behind. As Maria saw him leave, she left the safety of the shower and reached for the weapon.

  Maria sat on the bed and tried to open the revolver to remove the bullets. As she was holding the revolver, Pat came into the room, saw Maria with the revolver and left immediately. Pat ran next door to a neighbour, Mr Chudleigh, begging him to call the police and telling him that the lady next door was going to shoot her husband.

  Maria, terrified, ran out of the main bedroom, along the passage and down the stairs. She saw that the front door was closed and, when she looked up, Ralf was at the top of the staircase. She shouted for him not to come any closer to her. A shot was fired, and Ralf fell to the floor.

  I was appointed by Maria’s defence team and proceeded to investigate the evidence to establish whether there was a forensic basis for her version of events. When I examined the house, I saw the broken glass shower door. The bullet was found in Ralf’s shirt – it had passed right through his body into the back of his shirt.

  The bullet told a story. As Ralf had pounded on the glass door with the revolver, tiny glass fragments had become entrapped in the barrel of the weapon. When the shot was fired, the bullet picked up these glass fragments. I could still see them on the bullet under the mi
croscope, where they had remained during the bullet’s passage through Ralf’s body. This was direct evidence that Maria’s version of events was accurate. It played a role in her case, and my report was accepted into evidence.

  Mr Justice Vermooten was on the bench. He seemed riveted by the evidence of ‘Pat’ the hooker, particularly by the fact that she wore her high heels to bed. I have often wondered if Mrs Vermooten came in for a few surprises after that trial! The lurid details of the evening of 21 October 1987 provided the public with much insight into the world of call-girls and sex in the suburbs.

  Maria Krebs was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of culpable homicide – a mere slap on the wrist. She was also fined R2 000 and sentenced to a further three years’ imprisonment, which was suspended for five years. The court rejected for the most part the evidence of ‘Pat’ du Preez, saying it was full of contradictions. ‘Pat’ later sold her story to Scope magazine and was interviewed on M-Net’s Carte Blanche, where she said that she was full of regret and had turned her life around. For me, this case was a clear illustration of a man’s brutality towards his wife, and of the potentially terrifying consequences of a person being pushed to the limit.

  I was involved in another murder case, this time in Standerton, where a woman was pushed too far by her husband, and she shot him. A wonderful, charming man is how he was described in court – until he had a drink or two. Then he would turn into a monster, locking his wife in a cupboard and terrifying her by emptying a magazine of bullets into the cupboard door, or chasing her down the road, brandishing a pistol, threatening to kill her. Of course, once he sobered up, he would be full of regret and apologise most profusely. Then all would go well – until the next time.

  One fateful day, he was holding his wife by the ears and literally hitting her head against the wall. She felt around for her husband’s pistol and, when she found it, she emptied it into his chest.

  I believe that this man was a latent homosexual. Many of these abusive cases have a sexual component: some such men cannot satisfy themselves with their wives, and their frustration builds up to a level where it becomes debilitating. This theory of mine was corroborated by the deceased’s brother-in-law, who testified in court about how the deceased had tried to sodomise him.

  We were also able to demonstrate that the woman had been on antidepressants as a result of the pressure of her marriage. Indeed, at the time of her husband’s death, she had been tranquillised so heavily by her doctor that she couldn’t have formulated the intention to commit a crime.

  In this case, I gathered facts and provided the lawyers with information that they could use in court. This role – one more akin to that of private investigator or police detective than a forensic scientist – is one I often find myself playing. This was one of the quickest court cases I have ever seen: the defendant was acquitted before lunch time.

  The bloody hand does not inherit. This was the burning issue in a case that took place about ten years ago, when a husband and wife were found dead in their home. Both had been shot, and it was a mystery as to who had shot whom. It was the second marriage for both the husband and the wife, and they each had children from their previous marriages. The order in which they died became very important in determining the disposition of the estate – if the wife had pulled the trigger first, her husband’s children would inherit the estate; if the husband had shot his wife first, her children would inherit. South African law states, ‘de bloedige hand erf niet’ – the bloody hand cannot inherit from the crime.

  From the blood-splash analysis, I was able to determine that the wife had shot her husband first, and had then turned the gun on herself. The case was held before Judge Peter Schutz, and its ending was controversial, with much unhappiness from the deceased wife’s children.

  Murder cases involving intimate relations can sometimes leave more questions than answers for me, as happened with the Kobrin matter. This case also highlighted blatant flaws in police procedure, which seems to be a thread running through so many of the cases in which I have been involved.

  Raymond Kobrin was a medical doctor who was murdered in the early 1990s. His wife was charged with organising a hit on her husband. I was called in by her defence team to assist with the investigation.

  Janet and Raymond lived in Bedfordview, Johannesburg, and had several children. Raymond ran a successful GP practice in Benoni, after having trained at the University of Pretoria – in fact, he and I had been at school together. Strangely, he seemed to have all sorts of contacts outside the world of medicine that were both disturbing and unusual. There were rumours of connections with military intelligence, and these ghosts seemed to haunt the investigation from time to time, although they were never fully explored.

  The Kobrin marriage was far from happy, and Raymond was not the faithful husband he should have been. At the time of his death, he had a girlfriend, whom he stayed with on occasion. It was a stressful time, and there was talk of divorce.

  One afternoon, Janet and the children went out to a movie and the family’s staff had the afternoon off. Raymond came to the house, the reason for which was never quite clear – perhaps he was there to fetch some clothes or talk to the family. He suddenly disappeared. When his girlfriend didn’t hear from him, she became worried and frantically started calling around. These were pre-cellphone days, and Raymond, being a doctor, carried a pager. She called the paging company and left a message for him to call her.

  Two and a half weeks later, someone noticed a nasty smell coming from a car parked at the airport. When the locks were forced open, they found Raymond’s body in an advanced state of decomposition, with a single small-calibre bullet hole in the back of his head.

  Janet Kobrin was the main suspect. The police investigated, and I was appointed by Janet Kobrin’s attorney, Graham Edwards, to conduct a forensic investigation. I went to the house in Bedfordview and was met by Warrant Officer Holmes, the investigating officer. I still recall thinking that he was like Sherlock Holmes, but he turned out to be anything but. I put my hand out to greet him and he ignored it, asking me, ‘Who are you?’

  I introduced myself. ‘I have heard of you,’ he replied, saying that he had learnt of me while at police college. I asked what they had said, and he answered, ‘They told me that if that guy comes to your crime scene, you tell him fuck all!’ I saw this as one of the few genuine compliments about my abilities from the police!

  I started investigating the case. Raymond’s girlfriend provided one of the key pieces of information: she had called Janet in the late afternoon of the day that Raymond had disappeared to ask her if she knew where he was. Just before she called Janet, she paged Raymond. A distinctive ‘bleeping’ sound was made every time a message came through. The girlfriend swore blind that she heard the ‘bleep’ as she was talking on the phone to Janet, which meant that Raymond’s pager must have still been there when she phoned.

  Janet was adamant that the pager had not been there when the girlfriend called. Something else must have gone off that sounded similar, I thought. There were blood stains on the carpet, so Raymond had been at the house when he was killed.

  I spent quite a bit of time trying to find something that sounded similar to the pager sound that the girlfriend had heard. I tried the alarm clock, the kitchen timers – everything and anything in the house that made a noise.

  It subsequently transpired that it was Raymond’s pager that had gone off, and that Janet had known that but had let me waste time on a wild-goose chase. I have a very firm belief: if a client lies to me, I withdraw from the case. It is simply too dangerous to get sucked into a potential web of lies. My job is to find the truth using scientific investigation, which is impossible to do if untruths are at play. As a result, I withdrew from the case, yet I continued to follow its progress.

  The police did appallingly sloppy work. They tried to get Janet’s son to make a confession by assaulting him while in custody, which led to a court application being made and cast doub
t on the police’s abilities. The police, a bunch of hoodlums, thought they could get away with anything: many crimes in those days were solved by a confession, which was often obtained by assaulting the accused or a witness.

  A strange aspect to this case was the murder weapon. It was found much later in the incinerator at the nursing home where Raymond worked. Someone found the carbonised remains of a frame of a pistol. Who would have known to hide it there?

  At the end of a long case, in which no conclusive evidence came to light, Janet was acquitted on the charge of murder.

  Honesty, for me, is always paramount, and its benefit was brought home to me by another case of husband–wife murder. A man had shot his wife. He said that he had found her in the arms of another man and had murdered her in a crime of passion. I was asked to do a reconstruction of the crime scene.

  We knew where the cartridge cases had been found – on the right-hand side of the room – and also that an automatic pistol ejects the cartridges in a particular way. The man’s version of the story was completely at odds with the way the crime scene looked, taking into account the trajectories, wounds and other elements of the scene. I told him that his explanation was improbable, and he said, ‘I think I had better tell you the truth.’ He gave me another account, which was much closer to the truth and which was believed in court. He had actually committed cold-blooded murder, but the fact that he opened up in court was an extremely important component in his not receiving the death sentence. Honesty does pay, in the long run.