[imagesource: Kai Pilger]

South Africa’s criminal conviction rate is woefully low, and an understaffed and undertrained SAPS often has its back to the wall.

That reputation isn’t helped when videos emerge showing police brutality, but that’s a story for another day.

This story is actually an example of some very skilled work from the SAPS investigative psychology unit, which we’re usually accustomed to seeing only on true-crime series and shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

(Sadly, the technology at our disposal here in South Africa doesn’t quite stack up.)

Having watched Making a Murderer twice, from start to finish, I know that no crime scene stone can be left unturned, and that’s also true for leaves.

When detectives found a body dumped in Sunnyside, Pretoria, back in May, the fact that the body was wrapped in a sheet and a curtain, along with fallen leaves found alongside the body, proved crucial.

Reporting below via TimesLIVE, who spoke with Lt-Col Jan de Lange of the investigative psychology unit.

“From the beginning, we could see that she had been dumped there. She was not murdered there. At the crime scene there was a black plastic bag, a curtain, a small wooden block and the body. In the plastic bag, we found leaves. It looked like all these things had been dumped there on the paving from inside a dustbin,” De Lange said.

Let’s begin with the leaves, which investigators ascertained had been swept up from a different location.

De Lange enlisted the help of a plant specialist, Owen Brett, who told him that the leaves came from pecan and oak trees.

After walking the street where the body was found, they located a property about five houses down, with both tree species visible in the yard.

The owner then gave police permission to search the property, which was being looked after by a Zimbabwean caretaker:

“I told her [the owner] we found a curtain with the body. She said she had given some of her curtains to the caretaker and these were still kept in the storeroom at the back of the property. We went to the storeroom and inside one of the boxes we found a curtain that was identical to the one that was found on the crime scene,” said De Lange.

Image: SAPS

The caretaker was the prime suspect.

The investigating officer, along with other police experts, were called in to examine the caretaker’s room.

It was here that blood stains were found, along with a bloody panga — suspected to be the murder weapon, used to slash and bludgeon the victim to death.

The final piece of the puzzle was a block of wood found dumped with the body.

The caretaker’s bed was propped up by blocks of wood under each leg, but only three were found on the property, with the fourth leg propped up with a brick.

It is believed that the caretaker had been in a relationship with the woman, who was also Zimbabwean.

The man is currently behind bars and will face murder charges in a trial due to start in January.

It’s a sad reality that law enforcement in this country is tasked with solving so many murders, but credit where credit is due for the investigative work that went into catching the suspect.

You can read more on de Lange and the SAPS investigate psychology section here.

[source:timeslive]