Ex-lover helped get rid of body, court hears

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Pretoria - In a confession which reads like a movie script, the former mistress of retired Lieutenant-Colonel in the SAPS Danie Dreyer, who was allegedly murdered in his Villieria home, described how they stuffed his body head first down a manhole. They then threw caustic soda down the hole. Estelle Reddy, 36, said her “gangster” co-accused Gerhardus Papenfus said the chemicals would “dissolve the body, even the teeth”. Reddy worked for Dreyer and she lived with him for about a year before his death, although by that time they were no longer in an affair. She explained in her confession how they wrapped Dreyer’s bloody body in plastic before hiding it in the base of his double bed while her 22 month-old son was in the house.

Read: Retired Lieutenant-Colonel in SAPS 'murdered' and body doused with caustic soda

Reddy’s confession was handed to the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria yesterday, during the trial in which Reddy, Papenfus, 42, and two co-accused Kevin Johnson (also known as Zulu), 31, and Ruvan Furst (known as Malak), 42, are facing an array of charges, including murder.

The four denied they killed Dreyer, who was also the owner of Jacaranda Funerals at the time.

Dreyer was killed during the 2016 Easter weekend and his body discovered in a manhole in Capital Park several days later, near where Papenfus lived.

Reddy, who turned herself in to the police about a week after the killing, said she met Papenfus via a friend and he told her he wanted to get out of the “gangster trade” and start a legal business.

They agreed to go into business together, but he needed money. She told him to ask Dreyer, who refused.

About a week before the alleged killing, Papenfus told her he felt like returning to gangsterism where he “robbed people, sold drugs and even killed to get money”.

Reddy said she had to go to an engagement party in Laudium over the Easter weekend and Dreyer gave her his car. Papenfus offered to drop her and use Dreyer’s car.

“He said he had things to do. I asked him not to rob Danie because if something went wrong, I would not have a job or a place to stay.”

Reddy said Papenfus phoned her the next morning and asked for Dreyer’s bank account PIN code. “I gave it to him because I was afraid he would torture Danie.”

Papenfus later fetched her from the party in Dreyer’s car, with Zulu and Malak. “I asked him how the job went. He answered that Danie ‘had moved’ - that he was dead. He said it was an accident as Danie got a heart attack or something during the altercation.”

Reddy said out of fear for Papenfus she agreed to work with them and dispose of the body.

There was a lot of blood in the bedroom which they cleaned. Reddy drove around Roslyn to buy caustic soda in bulk, and gloves.

Reddy said Papenfus threatened to sell her son for R50 000 if she went to the police and she was extremely afraid of him. She drove the body to Papenfus’s home, where she and her co-accused stuffed it down the manhole in the backyard. “We forced it in, head first,” she said.

Reddy said they had to get inside the manhole to manoeuvre the body after which Papenfus threw the caustic soda and some water on it.

They returned to Dreyer’s home the next day, where they set his room alight to get rid of the evidence. Reddy said Papenfus insisted they drove to Eersterust as he wanted to shoot someone with Dreyer’s gun.

“We did not find anyone. We both then went to church.”

She said her plan was to flee to her mother’s home in Viljoenskroon. “While I spoke to my mother (on the phone), a homeless man heard me and convinced me to go to the police.”

The trial is proceeding.

Pretoria News