The High Court in Palm Ridge heard on Thursday that the car keys and cell phone of murdered teacher Kirsten Kluyts were discovered abandoned along the same route where she was participating in a community run in October 2023. The grim testimony came on the first day of the trial against Bafana Mahungela, who stands accused of her killing.
Mahungela is on trial for the murder, robbery, and attempted rape of Kluyts, who was 34 years old at the time of her death.
The first witness, a fellow participant in the run, described to the court how he stumbled upon Kluyts’s belongings on the morning of the event.
“I don’t know what cell phone it was and I don’t know what car keys it were at the time when I picked it up because I was still in racing mode,” the witness stated. “But later on I found out that the car keys belong to a VW. But the cell phone I never saw or looked at it. So I can’t tell you what cell phone it was.”
After the run concluded, the witness, growing concerned, joined two others to search for Kluyts. The search ended tragically when his wife discovered Kluyts’s lifeless body in a nearby park.
“And she got to me like in a high pitched voice,” the witness recounted. “She said to me, ‘She’s dead. They’ve killed her’ or something that I can’t tell you the exact words but it came down that she was dead.”
The State alleges that Kirsten Kluyts sustained blunt force trauma wounds.
A second witness testified that she had taken the last known photograph of Kluyts alive. This witness also described alerting authorities upon realizing Kluyts was missing.
“When the patrol vehicle arrived, I showed him, I explained the situation and showed him a picture of Kirsten to show them what she looked like and requested for assistance for the search,” the witness told the court.
Witness testimony in the trial against Bafana Mahungela is expected to continue on Thursday.
