Buttons strewn about, contents of a jewellery box scattered across the floor and scratch marks made by shoes being dragged are the signs that led a senior crime scene police photographer to testify that there was “a struggle” between murder-accused widow Bulelwa Ndudula, 46, and her late husband Sakhekile Ndudula, 52.
Warrant Officer Mandla Yelani, flipping through his huge file of photographs in the witness dock, told high court judge Igna Stretch that when he arrived at Ndudula’s house on the morning of September 14 in 2016, a few hours after the husband was shot dead, he discovered that there were a number of items that were “unusually lying on the floor” of the house.
Yelani told the court he had discovered shirt buttons “with possible blood on them” on the floors of two of the three bedrooms in the house. He said he also found a jewellery box on the floor, and its contents scattered across the floor.
Yelani was testifying before the High Court sitting in East London during Ndudula’s week-long murder trial.
She is accused of firing eight shots into her husband, who was an ANC Chris Hani regional leader and a chief of staff at the provincial social development department.
She has denied killing her husband.
Yelani said the buttons he had picked up were similar to those on the blue-striped shirt the husband was wearing.
“One of the buttons I picked up on the floor had possible blood on it. I say possible because that had to be confirmed later by forensics. To me it is not familiar or usual to have buttons, earrings and scratch marks on the floor,” he said.
Some of the buttons were sent for tests, and the jewellery box was checked for fingerprints.
Yelani said they found traces of where blood had been wiped away using a chemical called Bluestar, a forensic latent bloodstain reagent.These were were found in two of the bedrooms, the passage, the couple’s garage, on the jewellery box and on one of the shirt buttons he had picked up.
The husband’s bloodied, blue-striped shirt was introduced in court as evidence by senior state prosecuting advocate Sakhumzi Mtsila, causing an interjection by seasoned defence advocate Mike Maseti.
Maseti said it was “unfair” for the state to introduce such evidence without affording the defence a chance to also scrutinise it before it was brought into court.
He then applied for such evidence not to be accepted by court.
Judge Stretch, however, shot down his application and allowed the bloodied shirt, with its visible bullet holes, to be accepted as part of evidence.
During cross-examination, Maseti said the defence would dispute that the scratch marks were caused by a shoe on that day.
He quizzed Yelani on whether he knew how old the marks were.
The trial continues tomorrow, with Ndudula expected to be the first defence witness to take the stand...