GUILTY South Africa - Gill Packham, 57, murdered, Cape Town, 22 February, 2018 *arrest*

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Adv Webster refers to media coverage of the incident. Thomas says he didn't read about it. He saw a photo of Gill #Packham that his mom showed him on her cellphone. A man - her husband - had his arm around her. "That was the person I was talking about, that I saw."

Packham arrested March 1, 2018 and had been granted bail. Thomas said he didn't read about that, but of him breaking his bail conditions and being back in custody. Thomas is not active on social media.

Thomas recalls seeing Paul Gray as they chatted in the detective's car on the way from Diep River to Hout Bay police station. He can't remember what they spoke about, but "general talk".

Thomas says they were separated at the police station. He and Gray didn't speak about the ID parade on their way back to Diep River, just "general conversation" that he can't remember.

Team News24 (@TeamNews24) | Twitter
 
JudgeJudi said:
Thomas says they looked at each other but the driver kept going. They were about a metre apart as Thomas stood on the pavement. CA 724 is what he remembers of the number plate.

The driver was wearing a cap, clean shaven with an aggressive look on his face, "like someone who was angry". Light of complexion, mixed between white and coloured. Thomas thinks the man was thinner than he is - "I'm not a small person".

April 13 2018, Thomas attended a photo ID parade at Hout Bay police station. He pointed out the man because he looked exactly the same as the driver he saw that night.

Thomas selected #Packham in the photos as the man he saw that night. He points him out in the dock. The man is wearing glasses now, but wasn't that night, Thomas says.

Team News24 (@TeamNews24) | Twitter
Click to expand...


Packham looks to be 'hung, drawn and quartered' by the amount of evidence being produced.

Many thanks JJ (and others) f0r keeping this thread up to date. It is much appreciated.
 
Adv Webster says all the people in the pics were white males. Thomas agrees. A list of the names and ages of the suspects is part of the bundle. #Packham then was 57. Thomas estimated the person he had seen was 30-35. Some pics of people double that age.

#Packham says he had arrived at his sister's home for supper at the time he was allegedly seen at Diep River station. He had supposedly been there until 9pm. Could you have made a mistake? "No," Thomas replies.

Adv Galloway asks why Thomas' mother showed him the photo. He says he is not sure, possibly because someone had been murdered near their house and they wanted to know who the woman was. Witness excused.

Trial resumes on Monday.

Team News24 (@TeamNews24) | Twitter
 
Rob #Packham is back in the Western Cape High Court today for his murder trial. Six State witnesses are expected to testify... working around loadshedding between noon and 2:30pm.

State calls Louise J Friedling, who offered her expertise with injuries to Gill's skull. She has a plastic skull in the witness box with her.

Friedling: There were 3 blows to the skull. Those on the right side happened at or around time of death (probable cause of death). Also a fracture on left side of the skull which happened after death.

Dr Friedling says it would have taken considerable force to cause skull fractures. "The bones around skull are very hard." The injuries in skull were to the hardest and second hardest bone in the body.

Team News24 (@TeamNews24) | Twitter

YouTube is ready to go but streaming hasn't started yet.
 
Friedling: If fracture was caused by an accidental bump, the resulting injury would not have been so severe. Fracture indicates possible blunt force. If caused by a fall, it would have had to be high.

Under cross-examination, Friedling tells Adv Craig Webster the injuries could be caused by a single blow of great magnitude but it is very hard to hit the same point twice in a row.

Webster asks if it is possible that skull fractures could have been caused while Gill was behind the wheel of her car and assailant struck blows from the outside. "From a specific side and height, yes," she replies.

Friedling is excused. The next person on the stand is Sergeant Jones, a detective stationed at Hout Bay SAPS. She was asked to compile the photo identification parade.

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Under cross-exam, Webster wants to know why a live ID parade was not done. "I don't know," said Jones

Jones explains to the court how she compiled photos for ID parade. She says the investigating officer sent her the details over email and she used a secure system.

Jones tells defence she went onto her system, entered case number and station details, and then entered a NPIS number to bring up mugshot of Packham taken at time of arrest.

Jones says she entered age, gender and race in system to bring up suspects in other crimes. She then selected a few to add to Packham's mugshot for the photo parade.

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Jones says did not what witnesses had seen when compiling her photo parade. Webster puts it to her that the whole set-up is "an entirely artificial process".

Webster: If one looks at the ages in photo parade, the youngest person was the accused at age 57. The others were mainly people in their sixties and a person of 71 was also included in the photographs.

Webster: If Mr Packham was 57 years old, why did you include a photo of someone who is 71? Jones: Those were the pictures that closely resembled the accused.

Jones is excused. The State calls its next witness Constable Hokoza-Thaba (HT), an investigator who is stationed at Hout Bay police station.

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Prosecutor Susan Galloway asks HT how she is supposed to conduct a photo parade. She replies that she gets an instruction in a sealed envelope from the person who compiles the parade. She opens it when witness is in front of her.

HT: When the witness is in front of me, I go into the system, put in my password, station and case number, and click 'ID parade'. The witness details come up and I ask them to confirm. Then I bring up all the photos.

HT: The system asks me to check whether the witness was certain about the photo and/or shocked at seeing the photo of the person who caused the crime.

HT: The witness then goes through all the photos. If they click on or point out a photo, the system will ask 3 questions: Why this person? What did the person do? Lastly, they can add general comments.

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HT explains that time logged on system depends on how long it takes for a witness to explain what happened to her and everything she does on the system, not how long it takes for witness to identify an accused.

Under cross-exam, HT says 2 witnesses for photo parade arrived with the investigating officer but she is not sure if they were in the same vehicle. She is not sure whether witnesses spoke to each other. "They are not supposed to speak about the case".

HT: The witnesses can be in the same place but should not speak to each other before ID parade. "They shouldn't be influencing each other," says Webster. She agrees.

Webster wants certainty that the witnesses were guarded from interference at Hout Bay police station. HT says she was in another office but believes they were guarded.

Team News24 (@TeamNews24) | Twitter

The defence seem a bit desperate.
 
Webster wants to know what HT instructed during photo ID parade. "I told the witness to look at the photos and for the specific suspect, because I don't know who it is".

Witness is excused. The State calls its next witness, Judith Markwell, who is one of the accused's sisters. She has asked not be recorded.

Markwell says she was at work on 22 February 2018, when she got a message around 9am from Packham's daughter Nicola. I said maybe they had gone for counselling. I tried to get hold of my brother and Gill, and the company where he works.

Markwell: My brother phoned me around 10am and sounded confused. Before that, he wasn't answering his cellphone. At work, they said he wasn't in his office and might have been in the factory.

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Markwell: Rob said he was going to Springfield to see if Gill was there. When he got there, he phoned and said she hadn't arrived at work and he was going to look for her, in some of their favourite places.

Markwell: Throughout the morning, I was in contact with Rob. We both phoned each other. I phoned Constantiaberg Hospital to see if there had been an accident on her way to the work. I told him to go report it at a police station. He said yes he would.

Markwell: It was quite a stressful day. Not easy. I then said he must come to my house in Tokai, which he did. He arrived about 7pm. We had supper and he had telephone conversations with his daughters. They were quite distraught.

Markwell: When we got to Diep River police station, a report came through about a car on fire. We all piled into another friend's car and went to where the fire was but it was cordoned off. We were then told to go back to police station.

Team News24 (@TeamNews24) | Twitter
 
Markwell: He left around 9pm. A friend of Gill arrived soon afterwards and she was worried. We then got a message from Nicola about something that happened at Diep River.

Prosecutor Susan Galloway checks when Markwell asked her brother to report his wife as missing. She can't remember but said he wanted to. He hadn't yet because he was driving around looking for, she tells the court.

Markwell said her brother left around 9pm because Gill usually played bridge on a Thursday and he was hoping she might have been at home.

SG: It is common cause that they were having marital difficulties at that time and mention was made of an argument on 22 February. Markwell says she knew about counselling but doesn't know about argument.

Team News24 (@TeamNews24) | Twitter
 
Under cross-exam, Webster says the couple was making good progress in counselling. Markwell replies: "They were, they were back together and they were happy." She says Gill told her over phone a few days before that "things were good".

[Markwell was mistaken because the day before Gill was murdered, NP said RP told Gill at counselling that he still had feelings for the mistress and GP was upset]

Webster asks about Packham's mood that day. Markwell: He was emotional, he was very distraught, and didn't know where else to look. He had been driving all over looking for her. He was crying at some stage.

Markwell says her brother left her house to go home. Gill's friend Lorraine then arrived. "She wanted to know what was happening, if we had any news on where Gill was." After getting message, they then picked Rob up to go to Diep River.

Markwell: After we got back to police station from burning vehicle, Rob was taken for counselling. We then waited and took him home. He was exhausted and I said I would be there the first thing the next morning to see if I could help.

Team News24 (@TeamNews24) | Twitter
 
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Witness is excused. The State calls its next witness, Captain Danie van der Westhuizen, who is a supervisor at the provincial crime scene investigations team in Cape Town.

VDW says his job is to make sure all evidence is collected. "I am also a fingerprint, shoeprint and tyre track analyst."

VDW explains tyre track analysis. To 100% say a tyre made an impression on the crime scene, we look at unique characteristics (damage to tyre).

VDW: On 31 July 2018, I received a CD with photos taken by a sergeant. These were of the Diep River scene where a vehicle was burnt out.

Team News24 (@TeamNews24) | Twitter
 
I must say the pace of witnesses in this trial is so much better than McStay :p
 
VDW: In July, I also received a DVD with photos of tyre treads. On 13 August 2018, I received a CD with photos of tyre treads. I had to compare two different types of tyres with what was found on the crime scene and to form a conclusion.

VDW: On August 3, I was at Diep River police station where he took photos of a white Audi. I could then determine that the marks left on the scene was not made by the tyres. The pattern was totally different.

VDW: I went onto compare photos of other tyre tread. It was possibly made, which I then compared with the crime scene. Only the pattern corresponds. I could not find any unique marks on the crime scene print to be absolutely sure.

VDW: If there were more unique marks, I would have used the terms probable, very probable or caused by.

Team News24 (@TeamNews24) | Twitter
 
mrjitty said:
I must say the pace of witnesses in this trial is so much better than McStay :p
Click to expand...

I just removed my "like" because I can't compare it to McStay. This trial is moving along nicely now but the first couple of days were very slow.
 
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