Evidence Fabrication in South Africa

[African]

Interested2,
This is what we call the Pareto principle. I like your style. Provocative - yet not too hostile. Now how do you propose I should go about educating myself?
A for Altbeker
or perhaps B for Beertalk?

We at least need to understand the rules, and agree that we will not be too sleazy (I know there is some sort of checklist). Do you have any suggestions in this regard?

Cheers,
African

[Pat]

Hey, guys

I feel sort of in the dark here. You all have a couple of distinct advantages when it comes to keeping your thumbs on the pulse of this case. I have heard mention of blogs or discussion boards in South Africa on which this case is much discussed, but if any are in English I am unaware of them. Likewise, I get the news articles in English when they are published in South Africa, but I couldn't read the Afrikaans news if I did go to those sites. I would appreciate it if you could provide a summary of what is being said on the Afrikaans blogs and if there are any in English, could you post the addresses or links?

Thanks,
Pat

[Truth]

Hi Pat,

As far as I know, there is nothing of real value on the blogs, Afrikaans or English. If you need anything translated, please ask. I am also a bit in the dark when it
comes to some of the comments on this blog. Grigor is easy to find, but perhaps African can enlighten as a bit about the dwarfs and women he/she refers to? Brandon
please continue asking questions. Even if you are playing games (which I doubt) your questions might help us to put some of the conspiracy theories around the case to rest.

Interested2 - to answer your question about Beelders: Most people will pick a suspect (not always a bad idea) and then look for the evidence to support their theory.
In this case it has proven to be the wrong approach. My idea is to use the evidence we have available to build a scenario that will lead us to possible suspect(s).

Firstly we need to put all the role players into position. There are many things to determine and by discussion on an open forum we may come up with something that was missed in the past.

We have to start at the beginning. You might have noticed that Piet Byleveld also first went to the murder scene. What I want to do is to recreate the happenings
around the discovery of the body with a high degree of accuracy (in time I will explain why). I do not suggest that Christo Pretorius or Andre Beelders was involved at
all, but their communication with other role players might be of critical importance. The same applies to the policemen who were on the scene first.

The problem is that we only have the court transcripts and evidence from the court case to work with. Cellphone records for Pretorius and Beelders was not used during the case (I think). As civilians we cannot obtain that easily (maybe they can help us!). The testimony of Pretorius gives us a reasonable picture, but since it was given two years after the event (and remember he was extremely disturbed by the discovery) it cannot be trusted with absolute certainty. The time Beelders called the police is something that can be determined with certainty and will help validate (or at least help to explain) the evidence given by Pretorius. Those of you with access to the court transcripts - read the evidence given by Pretorius. Also read the judgement (easily available on the Web) if you are interested.

I am a bit short of time today (as this is a English forum it will need a lot of translation of the court transcripts), but I hope to propose a timeline of what happened based on what is generally known and hope that some of my questions can be answered by members of the forum. It will also act as a peer (beer?) review for what I suggest.

This approach might not make for good dinner conversation as the facts often interfere with the story (like PW Botha once said) but it is much more likely to expose the truth than any other method.

I wish you all a great day!

[brandondee]

Truth,

I think that's a fantastic idea. Over the course of the last couple of days a I've considered a number of potential angles, and having realised that in some I've missed some important information (such as the fact that she was most likely sleeping and there was little sign of struggle). Information such as this is critical to how the events played out for the remainder of the case. So I've decided to start from scratch, referencing Antony's account which is detail and thorough to the news paper reports, I do however think, for those who have the time and are willing to participate in such a debate may highlight a motive or get one step closer to understanding how this could have possibly played out. In this way, we're engaging on a constructive level, which should, from the outset not be biased towards any member of the group, or individuals who have been someohow linked to this crime, either as witness, accused, experts and/or work done. For a layman like me, I think such an engagement could be rather interesting and enriching. Everyone has a version of events, may know slightly more - would be good to put it on the table and disseminate it.

Any translations of Afrikaans local/inserts I will try my best to do.

Regards
Brandon

[Pat]

A for Altbeker
or perhaps B for Beertalk?

In case anyone missed the joke, "Beertalk" is an anagram of "Altbeker," the name of the author who wrote the first book on Inge's murder. Quite an appropriate anagram, I might add. Several of my South African friends prefer to use that term privately in emails when referring to him.

I've decided to start from scratch, referencing Antony's account which is detail and thorough to the news paper reports . . .

Let me speak of things about which I have personal knowledge. I do not object to the overall picture that Mr. Altbeker painted of me in his book. I tend toward outspokeness, brashness, arrogance, and irascibility. I am also quite proud of my Texas and Southwestern US roots, both in mannerisms and dress. However, Brandon, if you are going to take Mr. Altbeker's "details" as gospel, let me endeavor to dissuade you from that inclination. Mr. Altbeker was not accurate in many of his details regarding me and embellished them shamelessly and needlessly in order to enhance the impressions and atmosphere he was trying to create. For example, he refers to me wearing a set of gold cuff links with my grandaughters' fingerprints emblazened in them. Let me state now for the record (and I would gladly do so under oath if anybody would like to swear me in) that I have NEVER owned a set of cufflinks with my grandaughters fingerprints on them, nor do I own a single pair of gold cufflinks, nor do I wear French cuffs in the first place. Second, he referred to other western styles I wear. While it is true that I normally wear cowboy boots and a silver belt buckle in Texas or the US Southwest, before I went to South Africa I changed to a normal belt buckle and took only my traditional black dress shoes to that country. I carefully avoided any dress or accessories that would have been distracting when I was on the witness stand or in various interviews in which I engaged while in South Africa. Mr. Altbeker would have been welcome to call me a braggart, characterise me as egotistical, or have used any number of other unflattering terms that might be arguably put forth by some as true. But to make up blatant lies about gold cufflinks and how I dressed when none of those details were true, and moreso were unnecessary for his narrative, makes me highly skeptical of all of the details in his book.

Some of the direct quotes Mr. Altbeker attributes to me may have reflected my feelings, but some of the wording within quotation marks does not ring true to my style of speech. Quite the opposite, some of the direct quotes are highly unlikely, in my opinion, to be an exact transcript of my answers to his questions. I will give Mr. Altbeker the benefit of the doubt in this, although there is much doubt in my mind, because I did not keep verbatim notes nor recordings of our interviews.

I am not saying that Beertalk's book has no value. I am saying that it was sensationalized and the specific details he presents especially should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. If he spoke so falsely of simple details regarding me, how much faith can I have that all of the rest of his book was accurate in other details? And if the minor details were embellished, what degree of accuracy can we implicitly give to his conclusions?

[Truth]

Hi Brandon,

I fully agree with Pat. While Altbeker's book is good for general background, many aspects cannot be taken without a pinch of salt. After reading the book I was really surprised to see (on TV) what the characters he painted really looked like. Even the description of the court building, which I know fairly well, did not feel familiar to me.

As you will see when we start to look at the real detail, much of it cannot be trusted to reach any conclusions. But as a book, not an investigation, it is quite useful to get an initial feel for the events around the case. It certainly helped me to get started. Unfortunately it also started the obsession to solve the case in me

Pat, I appears I have now inherited the Beertalk name, or perhaps it was only an attempt to see if my name is Altbeker. It certainly is not! The one thing I have not investigated is all the people following the case. At times it seems there are better stories there judging by the emotions that is displayed !!

Have a great Monday.

[BrightYoungMind]

I am saying that it was sensationalized and the specific details he presents especially should be taken with a heavy grain of salt. If he spoke so falsely of simple details regarding me, how much faith can I have that all of the rest of his book was accurate in other details? And if the minor details were embellished, what degree of accuracy can we implicitly give to his conclusions?

Gotta agree with Pat – Albeker’s book is garbage – loaded with mistakes as well as cheap, cowardly, defamatory shots at Inge’s reputation.
See Page 179:
“I’ve heard that she had an abortion. I’ve heard that she was into S & M”.
Slimy, sycophantic trash about his pin-up boy:
See Page 341:
“It is an answer Fred can barely complete before sobs wrack his frame”
And he won a university grant for ‘Investigative Journalism’ to write this crap ?
Can’t imagine how this jerk can sleep at night.

[Pat]

Here is an interesting twist on the recent theft of Fred van der Vyver's attorney's computers:
http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/C ... ?id=171088

DA to pursue new Mdluli allegations
Weekend papers carry various details of the effect of police intelligence chief Richard Mdluli’s reinstatement, with one claiming that even state ministers are wary of his influence.

ERNEST MABUZA and WYNDHAM HARTLEY
Published: 2012/05/07 07:23:50 AM

FRESH allegations surrounding the status of police intelligence chief Richard Mdluli yesterday prompted the Democratic Alliance (DA) to restate its resolve to pursue a request for parliamentary scrutiny of the issue.

Weekend papers carried various details of the effect of Lt-Gen Mdluli’s reinstatement, with one claiming that even state ministers were wary of his influence.

On Friday, the Cabinet said it had not yet discussed Lt-Gen Mdluli but raised concern over the prevailing situation.

Lt-Gen Mdluli is accused of misusing slush funds, hiring relatives, along with seeking to increase his influence with the South African Police Service.

The reported statement by the chairwoman of Parliament’s police committee, Sindi Chikunga, that her committee could not probe the fraud and corruption charges levelled at Lt-Gen Mdluli because "it is not a court of law", drew a furious response from DA MP Dianne Kohler Barnard yesterday.

Lt-Gen Mdluli was reinstated to his post as the head of Crime Intelligence in March after corruption charges relating to the looting of the police’s secret service account were dropped. He was also facing murder charges but these were changed to an inquest inquiry, ostensibly due to a lack of evidence. He was reported in yesterday’s press as insisting that this was part of a smear campaign against him.

Ms Barnard said "the DA will continue to pursue its request for subjecting the ongoing saga regarding Crime Intelligence head Richard Mdluli to proper parliamentary scrutiny. The necessity of such hearings is compounded by revelations of a second secret service slush fund and a reported ‘pledge’ by Mr Mdluli to assist President Jacob Zuma and Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa . The DA does not accept the police portfolio committee chairperson Sindy Chikunga’s unilateral rejection of our request for a special parliamentary hearing as reported in the media."

In a separate development that may point to infighting or political interference within the security establishment, the General Council of the Bar said on Friday, following a spate of thefts from and harassment of advocates, that these attacks on advocates struck at the heart of the rule of law.

The council said the perpetrators appeared not to be ordinary criminals because they stole laptops and information, leaving other valuables untouched.

In the past few weeks, a number of advocates involved in high-profile cases involving the minister of police, or police in his department, and in one case an advocate who represented former African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema, were attacked.

Glynnis Breytenbach, the prosecutor who headed the fraud and corruption case against Lt-Gen Mdluli, had her vehicle shot at last month. Also last month, robbers pounced on the offices of two advocates working on the Fred van der Vyver civil case against the minister of police. Mr van der Vyver, who was acquitted of killing his girlfriend, Inge Lotz, and won his civil claim against the police ministry for malicious prosecution, now seeks damages.

Can anybody explain to me whether this is purely coincidental? Or is there some connection here I fail to understand?

[Truth]

OK Guys, while you sort out our Beer drinking friend, I am going to start my story..... Once done I would appreciate a little help!

When I looked at the judgement from the case I noticed that it stated that Christo Pretorius broke the news to the other role players at 22:36 on the evening of the murder. It is a rather lengthy story, but it made me think a bit.

Let’s look at a reconstruction of his likely movements on the particular evening. Most of the detail can be found in the court transcripts and some of it is just plain logic.

At 22:23 he received a call from Marius Botha requesting him to check on Inge as they have been looking for her since 15:00 that afternoon – the call lasts for 1 minute and 50 seconds. This leaves him with 11minutes and 10 seconds until 22:36

He was already in bed with his wife, so he had to get out of bed and briefly explain to his wife where he was going

He had to get dressed

He had to get into his car, drive through the housing estate, through a security gate, and follow the street to the Shiraz apartment complex. That is a distance just short of 1.4 kilometres from his house to the crime scene. He did not know where it was and according to the court transcript, Botha had to explain to him how to find it. Botha testified that he did not know where the flat was, as he had never been there, so one can assume that Christo had to find it based on an address alone.

He pressed the intercom button at the gate of the complex two or three times and it is likely that he waited for a short time.

When nobody responds, he asks a person on the balcony of a building on the left of the complex entrance gate to open the gate for him. The flat where Inge lived was in a different building on the right hand side of a parking area.

He parks his car and searches for the flat in the building. The numbering on the building is the wrong way round and he first looks on the ground floor before he goes up the stairs to number 21 on the first floor.

He knocks twice and when there is no answer, he tests the door and find that it is open.

He enters the flat and finds the body of Inge on the living room couch.

He runs down the stairs and across the parking area to the person (Andre Beelders) who opened the gate for him and knocks on the door. It is important to note that Beelders lives next to the entrance gate of the complex on the first floor, while the flat of Inge is on the other end of the complex. He explains to Beelders what he has found and they start making phone calls.

What bothers me here is that he must have been extremely rushed to complete all of this in approximately 11 minutes. This scenario is also not supported by his court testimony and this is why I would like to know the exact time of the call Beelders made to the police….

[Blue Bull]

22:36 should be 22:46. It is very clear from re-examination of Pretorius. The 22:36 call was from Botha to Pretorius. Pretorius had not even entered the crime scene by then. Looks like a mistake in the judgement. I don't think there's anything there.

Look at the crime scene. Out of which room did the murderer(s) approach the victim. Is there any evidence whatsoever which could indicate out of which room he/she/they came?

[Truth]

Hi Blue Bull,

Thanks for doing some real checking!

I am not aware of any evidence that puts the attacker in the flat before the incident. She changed clothes in her bedroom and the size of the appartment would have made it rather difficult for someone to hide and wait until she had eaten and was asleep/relaxed. The attacker most likely came in via the open front door, attacked the sleeping/relaxing girl from slightly above her left shoulder, went to the bathroom, washed his/her hands and wiped the murder weapon and left. Even if done better, I am not convinced that any fingerprints of the attacker would have been found. That is my line of thinking which obviously can be totally wrong.

Something that really bothers me is that the more I think about it, it appears as if there was a degree of premeditation or at least contemplation (short planning) as some books like to call it. More about that later....

Secondly, do not trust court records without checking, the 22:36 call was from Pretorius to Botha. The court got it wrong. The 22:46 call was from Botha to Pretorius. That is however not of critical importance now. I am not totally convinced that the re-examination determined that it happened at 22:46 without any doubt. If you have access, please see if anyone can determine from the testimony by the first policemen on the scene if there is any support for this time. Do not simply dismiss this. The devil is in the detail here and confirming this is very important.

[Blue Bull]

Ja well it looks like I made a mistake here because when I read Botha's testimony it is clear that he received the call from Pretorius at 22:36 and it was not disputed. The first policeman on the scene was September, who said that he received the call at "about half past ten". That doesn't help much.

Pretorius said he lived in the same estate, about a kilometer from her apartment. It doesn't take very long to drive that distance.... 90 seconds? Two minutes? And, who says that he had to "get dressed"? Maybe he went over in flipflops, rugby shorts and a Stormers jersey? .... 5 seconds to put on the rugby shorts (they sleep in their Stormers jerseys). Explaining to the wife... Ja ok maybe two minutes.

Finding the address... not too difficult if you've been given the instructions over the phone and you recognise it as the new complex you've been watching going up. Let us say three minutes.

Ringing the bell and calling to Beelders inside....... two minutes. Driving in and going up the stairs......... two minutes. Observe crime scene and conveying scene to Beelders.... two minutes. Pick up phone to call Botha... 5 seconds.

Total: 11 minutes, 10 seconds. What's the problem? It is a pity we don't have the Beelders's phone records.

[brandondee]

Hi all,

What makes this case so interesting is that the further down the road we seemed to have gone, the more conspiracy appears to have been added which has just added to further complicating the murder, rather than seeming to draw closer to a motive. As I've mentioned in my first post, my speculation and conclusions are drawn from the only reports which I have access to - through that which is a available for public consumption and the media. Altbeker's account is by and large the most complete re-collection of the events of the murder, and whilst the complete accuracy thereof is questionable, I have found that a significant amount of the information was collected from the various reports in media about this case at the time.

My intention of starting from scratch, using Altbeker's book as a reference (not gospel) purely comes from the fact that I read this quite some time ago just after it came out and thus have been basing my recent feedback as per my earlier posts on memory rather than any factual basis or reference. Such earlier assumptions then were based on the things which have tickled my mind since the early days of the investigation. Re-reading this, in addition to the news reports as they unfolded may provide some new insight, which as a first-time reader of the account may not have highlighted to the 'virgin' eye.

Having gone through the posts of this forum though, it is clear that some of the members of this forum have studied this already for some time extensively, or have access to information, records, etc. which are not necessarily available to members of the general public. I would imagine that some of these members then are quite possibly private investigators, or members of the SAPS who have an interest in this case, either through direct or indirect involvement. If I am wrong about this and such information is readily accessible (i.e. the full court transcript or cellphone records), I would sincerely appreciate it if this could be shared with the forum or with me privately. I seem to run into the same information time and again and any new information would be incredibly interesting and possibly help debunk some of the conspiracies that have built around this case.

I also realise that I run the risk that I may be completely out of my league in engaging in this discussion - with some field experts and highly technical discussion taking place on these forums, I am nothing but an armchair analyst looking to engage in some intelligent debate, this forum appears to be the closest to such a platform so I hope we can continue with this.

There appears to be a very high level of emotional responses to some of the posts here, with varying strong opinions on who did this, frequently these are backed up with an undertone of "I know... I have a record of... That's not correct, etc" yet none of this information is really ever revealed and as we know, no one has been prosecuted as yet which tells me most of us are grabbing at straws. So, as requested earlier, it would be nice if we could remove the emotion out of this and debate with a bit more transparency. We're hopefully all trying to achieve the same thing here.

There also appears to be a level of paranoia on this forum - with regards to the earlier comment, I'm certainly not playing any game here - I fail to see how anything I have said so far would indicate any alterior motive and if I had any involvement in this, why would I draw any attention to myself now? Makes no sense.

The question is, if this person was actively monitoring (and potentially even participating!) in this forum, does that change the sequence of events?

[brandondee]

I also think it would be good, by means of elimination to remove all reports or information which is completely inaccurate so we can park that aside and work from the barebones up. Some of these, for instance were reports that there was a homosexual love triangle at play, that there was an investigation into a possible link with Fred and student Danicha that drowned a year earlier in Loch Logan, Bloemfontein, etc.

Pat, for your benefit, the most recnent information revealed to the Lotz family has led them to enquire about some evidence which has disappeared during the investigation, this includes the magazine that was on Inge's lap, and the bloodied towel in the bathroom. I am intrigued about the magazine (Shape), which was open, apparently, on a page featuring one of the Miss South Africa 2005 finalists, one of which were a friend of Inge's.

Some other observations;

Much is said about how security conscious Inge was, how the Lotz family went to great extents to ensure security at her unit/complex,etc, unfortunately, there is however always the human element, the weakest link in the chain. I found this out myself when I was held up at gunpoint, in a unit with security bars on all opening doors and windows, secure estate with security patrolling and electric fencing. I simply forgot to lock the front door that evening, thinking that I'd let the dogs out later that evening but dozing off before I did. This is the most simplist explanation, that she forgot to lock the door. More likely however, was that she was expecting someone. I don't believe necessarily that Inge was asleep at the time of her murder, if she was expecting someone, she may have changed into comfortable clothes, put on the DVD and then got buzzed from the gate, briefly got off the couch, opened the gate remotely and returned to a comfortable position on the couch leaving the door open for her visitor just to come in. If this was how the events played out, she was also comfortable enough in what she was wearing with her visitor. We know from her mother's testimony that she would never appear like that in public, and quote "maybe in front of her best friend" and when asked in front of Fred, she replied "not easily".

One other thing to remember is that Inge had only stayed in this unit for a very short time before her murder. In her immediate circle of friends, who all knew where exactly she stayed and visited her here In the 4x weeks leading up to her murder?

[Interested2]

To pick up on Blue Bull and Truth's discussion about the room/direction from which the killer approached: Could the killer have been lying in hiding under the bed?