The trial of Johannes Jacobus Steyn, dubbed the 'Sunday rapist', was postponed on Friday.
|||Palm Ridge, Gauteng -
The trial of Johannes Jacobus Steyn, dubbed the 'Sunday rapist', was postponed in the High Court, sitting in the Palm Ridge Magistrate's Court in Alberton, on Friday.
It will resume on August 20 when two more alleged victims, aged 11 and 14, would testify.
Steyn is accused of murdering schoolgirls Louise De Waal and Lazanne Farmer.
He is also charged with 11 counts of rape, 10 of sexual assault, 10 of kidnapping, one of attempted sexual assault, one of attempted kidnapping, and two of assault.
He pleaded not guilty to all 37 charges against him.
Earlier on Friday, a forensic cellphone expert testified on the GPS co-ordinates of two cellphones registered in Steyn's name.
They were linked to the location where Farmer and a 16-year-old friend were abducted in Pretoria west on September 5, 2010.
“(The phones were) within the vicinity where the victim jumped out, and most possibly where the pick-up was made,” Lt-Col Andre Neethling said.
Farmer jumped from the moving vehicle and did not survive.
Last week her friend, now 18, testified how her disguised attacker drove her to a remote location and raped her.
Neethling said the phones both registered on cellphone towers near Steyn's home in Roodepoort at about 7am on that September morning, and then moved towards Pretoria on the N14 highway.
“It was definitely (moving) towards Pretoria.”
One of the mobile phones next registered at a tower in Danville, west of Pretoria at 9.21am. This was 1.9km from where Farmer jumped from the vehicle, and 3.5km from where the two were kidnapped.
At 9.59am a phone was registered at a Kwaggasrand tower, 289m from were Farmer jumped out of the vehicle.
“The cellphone then moved into the direction of the crime scene.”
At 12.48pm a phone was picked up 2.2km from where the friend was attacked in Gerhardsville, and was back in the West Rand at about 2pm, Neethling said.
Neethling was cross-referencing the dates and times of all the locations of the alleged 'Sunday rapist' victims with Steyn's cellphones' GPS co-ordinates.
He concluded his testimony by confirming the mobile phones' presence in the vicinity at all nine other kidnappings.
During cross-examination Steyn's lawyer Anton Lerm questioned the sophistication and accuracy of the data recorded by the cellphone towers.
“I personally have never experienced (a mistake),” Neethling answered.
He said in the five years he had been using cellphone technology to track down wanted suspects and missing children there had never been a time discrepancy. - Sapa