Alleged hitmans vehicle outside Jaydes, friends homes
Port Elizabeth - The car Jayde Panayiotou's alleged killer hired in April last year was outside both her and her colleagues' home before her abduction and murder, the Eastern Cape High Court in Port Elizabeth heard on Monday.
GPS tracking records showed the car was in Ruth Street, where Jayde's colleague lives, several times in the weeks before the murder, Lorenz Stoger from vehicle tracking company Cartrack told the court.
Prosecutor Marius Stander was questioning him about the movements of the Toyota Etios that Sizwezakhe Vumazonke hired.
Jayde's husband Christopher Panayiotou, Sinethemba Nenembe and Zolani Sibeko are on trial on charges of conspiring, kidnapping, robbing, and killing Jayde on April 21 last year. They pleaded not guilty.
Vumazonke, believed to be the hitman hired by State witness Luthando Siyoni, died in a Port Elizabeth hospital in September.
Stoger told the court that the car's average speed never exceeded 20km/h when it drove along Ruth Street. Both women taught at Riebeek College Girls'High School in Uitenhage and took turns giving each other lifts to school.
Never returned
The car drove exceptionally slowly along Deacon Road, outside Jayde's Stellen Glen complex, and from where she was kidnapped and taken to be killed.
The car never returned to either Ruth Street or Deacon Road after Jayde was kidnapped, the records showed.
On the day of Jayde's kidnapping, the car circled Stellen Glen numerous times before rapidly accelerating towards the entrance at 06:26. It made a hard turn and braked hard twice.
The car then accelerated again, followed by sharp breaking in Woltemade Road, and then drove into Van der Stel Street.
The car stopped at 07:13. Stander asked why there was no specific reference to its position in the records. Stoger said when a car entered a remote area, where street mapping was not available, the location was given as the nearest town.
"So, as a rule, I would say that it is highly likely that this position is out of town," he said.
He said the latitude and longitude co-ordinates could still be used to accurately determine where it had stopped.
Jayde was found shot dead in a veld near KwaNobuhle on April 22.
Terry Price, for Panayiotou, said he needed time to prepare to cross-examine Stoger, as he had given the court far more detail than was in his affidavit.
Peter Daubermann, for Nenembe and Sibeko, said he too would need time to prepare and consider getting an expert witness.