Possible blood stains in car used in Panayiotou killing: expert
A crime scene expert said he believed blood stains were present in the boot of the vehicle believed to be used in Jayde Panayiotou’s kidnapping.
|||Port Elizabeth - A crime scene expert told the Port Elizabeth High Court on Tuesday that he believed blood stains were present in the boot of a white Toyota Etios, the vehicle believed to be used in Jayde Panayiotou’s kidnapping by alleged hitman Sizwe Vumazonke.
Warrant Officer Phillip Bekker testified on the 15th day in the trial involving her husband Christopher Panayiotou and his two co-accused Sinethemba Nenembe and Zolani Sibeko.
The three are facing charges which include murder following the discovery of Jayde’s body in a bushy area on the outskirts of Kwanobuhle on April 22, last year. The State alleges the businessman arranged a hit on his wife because she was a financial burden.
Bekker said that he conducted tests looking for “latent blood” which is not visible to the naked eye.
He said that in his opinion the stains found in the boot of the vehicle were possible blood stains but added that a DNA expert would have had to conduct tests to confirm if the samples taken did in fact test positive for blood.
“I was of the opinion that it was possible blood,” Bekker told Prosecutor Marius Stander.
According to the State, at the time of Jayde’s alleged kidnapping outside her Stellen Glen Complex, she was hit with blunt force and placed into a boot of a car before being driven off to a remote area on the outskirts of Kwanobuhle where the alleged killing took place.
The State alleges she was shot twice through the back and once through the head.
The accused face charges of conspiracy to commit murder, murder, kidnapping, robbery with aggravating circumstances and unlawful possession of firearm and ammunition. The men have pleaded not guilty to all the charges against them.
Panayiotou, who was arrested shortly after his wife’s murder more than a year ago, faces an additional charge of defeating the ends of justice.
Sibeko was the last suspect to be arrested, 15 months after the murder, and has apparently been linked through cellphone mapping to being present outside Jayde’s complex in the days before her murder. However, his exact role in the events is still unclear.
The trial continues.
African News Agency