The inquest into the unsolved murder of Anika Smit was delayed on Thursday morning while copies of a spell book used by a fellow pupil who showed an interest in the occult were made for the court.
Prosecutor Tania Carstens asked that the public gallery be patient while the various lawyers examined copies of the book to prepare their questions.
The young man, who goes by the Mxit user name “Vampire”, has been the focal point of much of the questioning into the blonde high school pupil’s death at home in Theresa Park on March 10, 2010.
Her father Johan found her body. She had been raped, her throat was slit and her hands had been chopped off. Anika’s hands remain missing.
On Wednesday the young man’s girlfriend was questioned for the whole day, answering a range of questions including when they started having sex. She had to defend her own interest in films and novels about vampires, which have swept the teen literary and film scene in the past few years.
She seemed almost embarrassed to say that she read the books, but added she had never been around people who supposedly drank blood, because it was against her Christian faith.
Book of spells seized
She was also asked if her boyfriend had ever attempted to have his eye teeth altered to look like a vampire. He had not, she said.
But mostly, she was questioned about scratch marks on his body, which his mother, his sister, and his girlfriend have said was when he tried to carry his sister inside when she was about to storm off to her ex-fiancé’s house over a Facebook post he made.
A message sent by “Vampire” to another user named “Satan Eyes” relating to a spell to get rid of someone also came under the spotlight.
The girlfriend, who went by the user name ”Penguin”, admitted sending a message to “Vampire” asking him if he could get rid of someone, but she said she did not mean it literally and was young and stupid. It had related to somebody who was being abusive to somebody she cared about, and he was very much alive.
The book of spells was apparently among a number of items seized from her boyfriend’s house, including CDs of horror movies and a number of bullet cartridges.
“Penguin” said she only knew Anika by sight at school, but when she disappeared, rumours flew that she had run away with Nigerians.
She said she did not know much about Anika, apart from observing that she seemed to have something going on in her private life because she had been at school on and off.
Source: News24
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