A Shoprite employee who witnessed the fatal shooting of former manager Beatrice Manuel in a robbery shared compelling evidence in the Western Cape High Court, which has its sitting in Worcester on Monday (7 March).
Manuel, manager of Shoprite in Zwelethemba, was shot dead on 2 June 2019 in the store’s cash office shortly after opening for workers who were reporting for duty.
The three men accused of Manuel’s murder are Bongani Dlongwana, Lulamile Sikephu and Xolisa Mtyobile.
The high court heard on Monday that when Crystal van Zyl and a fellow employee arrived at work at 06:05 that Sunday morning something did not seem right to them.
“The lights were already on and the security guard, who always opened the door for us, was not there,” Van Zyl said.
The fellow employee then knocked on the door in a quest to alert the security guard of the presence.
“You knock like a baby, step aside and let me knock,” the witness related.
She then hammered on the door. Moments later the other woman told her to look more attentively in the store when she knocked.
The security guard and another employee who worked in the bakery were walking with their hands in the air and a walking behind them with a firearm.
She and the other woman then agreed to run to the police station and alert police to what was happening at the store.
“She was much faster than I was, and because my phone had fallen and I had stopped to pick it up, she arrived at the police station, which is not at all far from our workplace, before I did.”
As Van Zyl picked up her phone, still outside the supermarket, she locked eyes with Manuel, who had come to the door to lock it.
Van Zyl testified there was a man behind Manuel who had a firearm in his hand. She tried very hard not to look at any of the three men accused of the murder while testifying.
State prosecutor Adv Ntsoaki Mabilietse asked Van Zyl to point the man she saw walk behind Manuel that morning out, and very quickly she identified accused number 2, Lulamile Sikhephu, who was dressed in a red golf T-shirt on Monday in court.
She further testified that, after making eye contact with her former boss through the door, she also ran to the police station to report what she had seen.
After relaying her version to the police, Van Zyl and her fellow Shoprite employee were told they had to wait for there were no police vehicles available.
They then went to wait at her house, which is not too far from the police station or the store, until they heard sirens and deemed it a signal for them to head back to Shoprite.
On their arrival at the scene they were then informed there had been a shooting.
Van Zyl shared with the court that she was booked off for a week because of the trauma she had gone through.
The High Court proceedings were due to continue for the rest of the week, and the state will wrap-up its witnesses by next week.
