Durban — The Durban High Court will next year be hearing arguments on the merits of the case in the trial against a Newlands East woman charged with the murder of her husband before delivering judgment.
Mark Buttle was stabbed multiple times in the neck in 2018 while in his car in Newlands East, allegedly by his wife Analidia Dias Bella Dosantos, her lover Teagan Allison Brown, and the two women’s friend Charmaine Margaret Khumalo.
Dosantos and Khumalo stand trial without Brown, who died in July ahead of the trial getting under way.
The three are alleged to have hatched and executed a plan to kill Buttle. An insurance policy is alleged to be the motive behind the murder coupled with Dosantos, 41, alleged to have been having an affair with Brown, 25.
The trial recently wrapped up after Dosantos’ cross-examination by the State. The case was adjourned to January for arguments on the merits of the case and judgment.
During the trial when the State introduced a statement on the confession and pointing out made by Khumalo, the defence opposed it and a trial within a trial got under way. This was for the court to determine the admissibility of the evidence on the grounds that the accused was under undue influence at the time.
Acting Judge Murray Pitman ruled that the confession and pointing out were inadmissible.
Evidence that on the night of Buttle’s murder Brown and Khumalo pitched after midnight on the doorstep of another woman’s house with bloodied clothes did not form part of the evidence of the main trial.
This was after a statement detailing all this was ruled inadmissible by Judge Pitman in a second trial within a trial in the matter.
The second trial within a trial came about after defence counsel for the two women objected to the submission of this statement made by Inga Ogle, who had since died, on the grounds that Ogle could not be cross-examined on the evidence in the statement.
Ogle was married to the daughter of a State witness, Shareen Ogle, who is Khumalo’s ex-lover.
During the trial, Shareen told the court that Khumalo had confessed to her about the murder. However, when Khumalo took the stand she denied this.
The two accused are out on bail.
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