The official SAPS version is that:
a) Michael committed suicide as police entered or broke into the home.
b) Michael’s body was found in the passage.
It would be reasonable to assume that if someone committed suicide from a head shot before police entered the home, then the person should have no injuries other than the head shot injury. Michael had minor surface injuries on his back which cannot be assumed to have been self inflicted. There should also be no blood on walls or doors , or on a bed or furniture other than that caused by the bullet entry and exit (called blood spatter, which in the case of a headshot, is composed of blood and brains) and blood that collected whether the person fell or collapsed, e.g. on a floor or on a bed.
In Michael’s case, there was no visible blood spatter at the height of someone who was shot in the head in a standing position, in the passage on the walls, or on the door from his bedroom that opens into the passage.
Someone at the premises, during the time it was under control of SAPS, upon hearing that the family was keen to enter the home as soon as possible, mentioned that “there is so much blood” (translated here from Afrikaans). The family only saw a lot of blood in a pool on the carpet, the spot indicated where Michael had died.
Here is a cropped section of a photo showing the ‘pool of blood’ that I refer to several times on this blog. The blood was semi-congealed, and was over a centimetre thick, if I recall correctly. This photo was taken with a smartphone camera. I cropped the photo so as not to show the person standing on the mat which covers some of the blood. The mat was put there so that persons walking to or from the lounge would not have to step in the pool of blood.

Family members suspected that in the approx 27 hours between Michael’s death and the first time the family was permitted to enter the home, that blood had been cleaned up, but we never knew where cleaning up had taken place, until more than a month later.
About 6 weeks after Michael’s death, Barbara found what appeared to be blood on the wall which is sometimes obscured by Michael’s bedroom door, if that door is opened wide. There was also what appeared to be blood on the door and door frame. The blood appeared diluted, and marks indicated that blood had been washed and wiped off the wall and door. Further examination revealed what appeared to be blood spatter, but low down on the door inside edge (i.e. edge where the door hinges are located) and door frame. Over the next 6 weeks or so Barbara found more evidence, some of which I photographed on a few visits to Cape Town.
In short, blood was found all over in Michael’s bedroom. In some cases, marks looked clearly like blood stains. In many cases of spots on walls, the marks or posts had the appearance of diluted blood, e.g. what could be expected if blood was washed off walls, but was not washed properly. On the wooden shelves in this bedroom, and on the floors (covered by fitted wall-to-wall carpets while Michael was alive) the wood is stained in many places. When sprayed with a blood presence revealing chemical (Barbara and I used BlueStar) and viewed in the dark or very low light condition, then blood shows up on the wood as a blue fluorescence. The spots on the wall also showed up as blood when sprayed with BlueStar, but on the light coloured walls, blood or diluted blood is visible to the naked eye under daylight conditions. While not visible to the naked eye, blood presence is indicated on practically the entire bedroom carpet, when using BlueStar.
The diagram below shows the indicated place where Michael’s body was allegedly found, and shows two walls where blood was found on the walls, and the wooden skirtings where the walls meets the floor.
Blood spatter cannot travel through a wall, or around a corner. If some of the blood on the walls in the bedroom was from blood spatter, then Michael was shot in his bedroom, and not in the passage. Why did SAPS state Michael was found dead in the passage? And why were shelves and walls in the bedroom cleaned of blood before the family first entered the home?
There is evidence that Michael was assaulted first, then murdered, but I will not reveal details for the time being.

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