A car standing in the middle of the N2 highway near the Gamtoos River with its doors open and a blood-drenched interior led to the gruesome discovery of a heavily pregnant woman lying dead in bushes nearby.
She had been murdered.
Her husband, Rezaan Fondling, 33, charged with the December 2020 murder of Zaida Samodien, 33, pleaded not guilty in the Gqeberha high court on Monday to charges of murder, attempted murder, defeating the ends of justice and contravening a protection order.
Testifying on behalf of the state, Noland van Eck, who had been escorting a truck along the N2 on December 18 2020 at about 3am, told the court on Monday he had immediately known something was amiss when he saw the truck in front of him swerve into the oncoming traffic lane.
Noticing a blue VW Polo parked halfway in the road near Mondplaas, Van Eck immediately stopped and got out his car to inspect the situation.
“There was blood all over the inside of the vehicle — on the seats, the steering wheel, the centre console and the dashboard,” Van Eck said.
He said that, armed with only a torch, he had noticed blood on the railing next to the road and when he took a closer look he had heard what sounded like someone gurgling and noticed movement in the bushes.
After calling out to hear if anyone needed help, and not getting response, he called the police.
While he was waiting for the police to arrive, an ambulance had driven past and stopped, Van Eck said.
One of the paramedics, who asked Van Eck what had happened, went to the bushes to inspect where the noises were coming from.
Van Eck said when the paramedic returned he had told him there were two people in the bush — a woman and a man.
Van Eck said he had left the scene after the police took his statement.
Constable Mluleki Dondashe, who was first of the police on the scene, told the court he had also noticed a large amount of blood inside the Polo and when he went to the bush with the paramedics he had seen Fondling lying next to Samodien, crying.
When Fondling stood up, after being instructed to do so by Dondashe, there was blood smeared on the front of his shirt.
According to Dondashe, when he and Fondling got back to the road, Fondling kept saying he wanted to die and attempted to walk in front of oncoming traffic.
It was then that Dondashe put Fondling into the back of the police van.
While securing the scene, Dondashe said, he had overheard Fondling tell someone they had been kidnapped.
When he inquired further from Fondling what had happened, Fondling allegedly told him they had been hijacked.
“At that stage I suspected [Fondling] was involved,” Dondashe said.
Asked by defence attorney Ryno Scholtz why he had thought Fondling was involved, Dondashe said his story had not added up because the Polo’s keys were found next to the passenger side of the car, that Fondling had no marks or injuries on his body, and he still had his gold chain around his neck and earrings in his ears.
“There was no indication that something happened to [Fondling],” Dondashe said.
He said he had then read Fondling his rights and arrested him on the spot.
Fondling was denied bail in the Humansdorp Magistrate’s Court in January 2021 after magistrate Una Rhodes found that his version of events, which he gave to police at the scene and in court, was so improbable it could be considered a fabrication.
According to the state, Fondling and Samodien, who had a protection order against her husband of 18 months, had spent the previous night together.
It is alleged Fondling had been driving the Polo and had stopped on the N2 near Mondplaas sometime during the night.
After stopping the vehicle, he allegedly stabbed Samodien multiple times while she was in the passenger seat before both got out the car.
Fondling allegedly continued to stab her outside the car before moving her body down the embankment next to the road.
She was eight months’ pregnant at the time.
The state has claimed Fondling then staged the scene by opening the car’s boot and scattering bottles of oil on the road before going to lie next to Samodien’s body.
During his bail application, Fondling claimed the couple had been hijacked and forced to drive to where the vehicle was stopped.
There, according to Fondling, one of the hijackers stabbed Samodien before they left in a passing truck which they also allegedly hijacked.
A postmortem revealed Samodien died from “sharp injuries to the neck and chest”.
A blood splatter expert is expected to testify when the case continues on Tuesday.
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