The shooting of Constable Leroy Scott in May 12th 2015

The following is an update to my post on the IPID report published in 2015

While I did state in 2015 that Michael had shot Scott in self defense, I now need to retract that statement and issue a new statement.

SAPS has thus far refused to inform the family what gun Michael used when he shot at Scott and they also refuse to state what gun was used that fired the bullet that killed Michael. SAPS of course stated that Michael shot himself with his own gun, but they do not state the type or make of gun. SAPS did not state what caliber of bullet hit Scott.

My sister Diana has always insisted that if a bullet fired by Michael’s gun had hit Scott, that bullet would not have been fired directly at Scott, and it must have ricocheted off something before hitting Scott. In other words, Michael would have fired a warning shot and not have intentionally fired directly at Scott.  Barbara never believed that Michael did shoot at Scott, though video evidence does show that Michael had a gun and that the gun did jerk, presumably from recoil after firing.

I myself had thought that a ricocheted bullet had hit Scott. My statement in 2015 could however be interpreted that Michel intended to shoot Scott in the face/head, but that was not my intention when I wrote that. The range was very short, and Michael could probably have shot Scott between the eyes, if he had so wished. Furthermore, it is possible that in that situation (described as a war zone by neighbours) Michael accidentally fired a shot.  So I certainly cannot state or imply that Michael had intentionally fired at Scott, even though Scott had shot at Michael, again, based on video evidence.

Incidentally Scott stated to the IPID that he directed two shots at Michael. The CCTV video shows only one shot, but a ballistics expert said with sequential sequencing of multiple CCTV cameras, it would not be unexpected that only one shot would be seen on CCTV footage from a single camera when two shots were fired in quick succession from the same gun.

How Cape Town media in particular obscured the truth instead of informing public

Radio, online and social media covered the standoff or siege extensively, from late on the 12th May. On the 13th May, there was extensive coverage in print media as well. there were several print media articles on 14th May, with very little coverage thereafter. Several online and media articles on 19th, the day Michael was buried. Limited media coverage when iPID announced it was going to investigte, and coverage in several online and printed media when IPID report was issued.

 

However, the initial negative portrayal of Michael Volkwyn on 12th-14th resulted in public interest greatly and rapidly diminishing, with the result that there was nearly zero public interest after Michael’s family found hard evidence of assault and murder.

I have summarized the negative role of the media in this table:  Media reports of siege and death

Michael’s acquittal of an illegal weapons charge

Michael’s was charged on 7 counts all pertaining to manufacturing of unlicensed weapons, possession of such weapons etc.  The case was opened in  2008.  He was acquitted on all counts on 13th August 2010. The Prosecutor was Ms Ismail. The magistrate was Ms. van Eeden.

Here is a scan of the judgement , in a Dropbox folder.

Barbara was aware of this court case, and possibly other family members. Michael’s brother Roy was however totally unaware of this case until after Michael’s death.

Michael carefully wrapped the original paper document of the acquittal judgement , tied it with a ribbon, marked it for “Roy” and hid it under the floor of his bedroom.  We presume this was intended for Michael’s brother Roy and not Michael’s high school friend Roy Gentle.  It is certain that police searched under this floor after Michael’s murder (to retrieve the bullet that went through the floorboard, if not for anything else).  This acquittal judgement was one of several items that was left untouched by those who searched for and removed documents and artifacts from the house on 13th and 14th May.

Someone with knowledge of weapons development told me that one would normally only be acquitted of an illegal weapons charge if someone very high up in government ordered the acquittal. He said one reason to acquit someone, is to later recruit that person to develop weapons. He also said that is was possible that someone had recruited Michael to develop the weapons for which he was charged in 2008.

Apparently, a person convicted of an illegal weapons charge may not get a license to own a gun. A person without a gun license cannot purchase propellant to make ammunition. We know that Michel had a gun license, and that he had tins of propellant in his home.

CSI company found no evidence of blood in bedroom!

Several months after Michael’s death, Barbara had some DNA tests done to check for Michael’s blood on certain items. She was told by the lab that lab results are inadmissible in court unless the samples are collected by either police or private detectives.  It was then that we decided to get a Crime Scene Investigations (usually abbreviated to CSI) company to not only take samples, but also to reconstruct the crime scene and to find bullet holes.

I contacted one company who referred me to another company as the first one did not use blood presence detection tests.  This second company stated that they were competent to do the work, and also said that they work with a partner who does some of the work.

To cut a long story short, measurements were taken, photos were taken, I paid and got a report in two parts.  The report stated that there was no evidence to support the family’s claims of blood in the bedroom.

The fees I paid for this work was for me as a pensioner, a significant amount of money.  The money was not entirely wasted, as they did a blood presence test on the trolley in the passage.  Blood was indicated, and the blood droplets were very fine. This indicates forward spatter.  I conclude, from that test and associated photo, that Michael’s dog Tiger Dog was shot in front of that trolley.

This company was unaware that Barbara and I would ourselves get hold of BlueStar, and do blood presence tests in the bedroom.  As already reported in previous blog posts, blood was found all over in the bedroom, on the walls, carpet, wooden bord used to stiffen the mattress,  floor, skirtings, tops and undersides of shelves.

 

 

 

blood marks on underside of bedroom shelf

The first photo below shows the shelf which has a bullet hole in it.  This photo was taken just before we sprayed the shelf with BlueStar.

 

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The next two photos were taken after the light was switched off after spraying with BlueStar. These blue patches were large (i.e. not from blood drops) and glowed brightly, indicating high blood content ( or little dilution from washing or cleaning)

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Normally the blue glow dies rapidly and by the time the light has switched on, the blue glow is no longer visible. In the photo below, the blue glow was still very evident after the light was switched on.

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This shelf is above head height.  I believe that when Michael was trying to fight off his attackers with his bare hands, he stepped on top of his bed.  The room is very small, and the only space for him to move at that stage, was on his bed.  One or more of his attackers must have stepped on top on the bed too.  Michael’s head was pushed hard against the shelf, causing a head wound that bled profusely.  (note that this head wound was not noted by the private pathologist, and according to a policeman who claims he was present at the autopsy, no head wounds were noted by anyone at the autopsy).

The blood indicated in the 3 photos above, is I believe, the blood from Michael’s head wound.  It is not known to me whether the blood was deposited there by Michael’s fingers or a policeman’s fingers. It appears as though the shelf got dislodged, as it is not screwed or bolted down, and then fell down during the struggle. There is damage to the ceiling board that looks as though it could have been caused by this shelf first tilting upwards (it is also possible that Michael grabbed the shelf to use it to defend himself).

 

Role of CoCT Law Enforcement in Hazendal raid on 12th May 2015

I sent 4 questions to City of Cape Town Law Enforcement

1. Who in Law Enforcement initiated the process to remove Volkwyn’s dogs?

2. Who was the most senior person in Law Enforcement who authorized the process to remove Volkwyn’s dogs?

3. Did Law Enforcement request support from SAPS?

4. Or, was it SAPS that initially requested Law Enforcement to get Michael Volkwyn’s dogs removed?

Eventually, after I had forwarded or copied the e-mail to various persons, I got a reply from an Information Officer stating that I needed to submit an application via the Public Access to Information Act (PAIA) process.  I then restructured my questions, and ended up with 16 questions, some with several sub questions.

Here is a link to the unsigned version of that document.

Law Enforcement folio for InformationAccess

I was requested to pay the standard R35 fee before they would commence accessing the information.    Here is the essence of the response to my questions.

LE Response

Law Enforcement sent me a file in PDF format including two e-mails, and excerpt of which is in the LE Response link above, a medical report of the injured tenant, and various affidavits.  It is not appropriate that the entire response be linked here I think the tenant’s affidavit and photos of her wounds should not be put in the public domain, not by myself anyway.

Law Enforcement evaded answering questions that could have put them in a bad light.

On 13th May, about 5 hours after Michael’s death, Leon Wessels no doubt in anticipation of media or public requests for clarification of Law Enforcement”s role, wrote an e-mail  which was included in the PDF file sent to me.  Here is an except from this e-mail.

LE_e-mail_13thMay

Law Enforcement states that they made an unsuccessful attempt to impound dogs on 5th May.  They then requested the assistance of SAPS TRT Mitchells Plain.  Law Enforcement does not state why they requested the assistance of a TRT (Tactical Response Team) unit, instead of ordinary police from the nearby Athlone police station. A TRT is normally used when a number of armed criminals are to be arrested, e.g. for cash-in-transit heists, arresting an entire gang of armed persons.

Law enforcement is not telling the whole story. A still image – see photo below – captured by Michael from his cctv system shows that Law Enforcement was outside Michael’s home on 26th April. 

This was at or around the time the tenant and her partner were removing their goods from the rooms they had rented from Michael.  Police (dressed as ordinary police, not SAPS TRT police) were present and were on Michael’s property during this removal of tenant’s goods.

Sharief Kafaar, Legal Advisor, City of Cape Town never responded to my question asking what Law Enforcement was doing outside Michel’s home on 26th April.

SAPS did not, it would seem, have a legitimate reason to raid Michael’s premises on 12th May. City of Cape Town Law Enforcement claims it was at the property on 12th May to seize Michael’s dogs, however, they did not do so in terms of existing legislation. Law Enforcement used a By-Law which was in bill form, and had not yet been promulgated. Thus, Law Enforcement was involved in an illegal raid at No. 10 Albermarle Rd, Hazendal on 12th May. A raid that culminated in my brother’s murder the next morning.

Two separate areas of blood on carpet in passage. One was certainly from the dog.

When this article was originally posted on 26th September, the blog post title asked was one from the dog. subsequently, I learned a little about forward blood spatter (blood and body matter ejected from bullet exit hole) and back spatter (blood ejected from bullet entry hole). Forward spatter is typically like a mist.  This is visible on the trolley. Back spatter is usually blood drops, rather than a fine mist. While back spatter was not apparent in the passage, the bloody arcs on the metal sheets clearly resembles arterial spatter, i.e. a stream of blood ejected from a severed or punctured artery.  I am quire sure that when the dog was shot, forward spatter was deposited on the trolley, and back spatter in the form of arterial bleeding sprayed onto the metal sheet against the wall.

– updated on 12th November.

Below is the original text posted on 26/09/2015.

Photo 1 below has two areas each demarcated by a yellow line – these lines were added electronically.  The area in the background. or towards the top of the photo (completely enclosed by a yellow line) is the area which had the pool of blood when the family first entered the home. In other words, the area where Michael was allegedly found dead by police.  The blood was left untouched for about a week (we were waiting for IPID to visit the home) and was then cleaned by my nieces or under their supervision.  The straight line on the left of this whitish area is where Michael’s thin sheet metal boards had been resting on the carpet.  There were several of these large sheets, which were almost as long as that section of the wall that they were propped up against.

The second area in the foreground of the scene, or on the lower right hand side of photo 1 (partially bounded by a yellow line) is the second area which had blood on the carpet.  This section of carpet was in front of and underneath a trolley Michael had in the passage for some tools, metal parts and reels of copper wire. When questioned by a CSI investigator, my nieces “confirmed that they used a household cleaning product as well as some washing powder that they sprinkled over the 2 spots”

 

Photo 1

Photo 2 below shows the floor underneath and in front of where the trolley had stood.   The two photos, photo 1 and photo 2 were unfortunately not taken from the same camera position and zoom setting, but it is clear that the area of stained floorboard is far larger than the area of discoloured carpet.  By comparison, the floorboard under the spot where Michael was allegedly found dead, does not have this significant discolouring. If anything, my nieces would have had more cleaning done on the section where at the time we believed Michael had died, as that was the area with the thick pool of blood. My nieces were not at Michael’s home when they made the statement(s) to the CSI investigator. In fact, I doubt very much that my nieces had done any significant cleaning of the area under or in front of the trolley.

Barbara and I allege that the very discoloured floorboard area in photo 2 was washed and/or cleaned by persons in the home between the time after Michael’s death but before the family was permitted to enter the home.

Photo 3 was taken in low light conditions after the trolley and its contents were sprayed with BlueStar.  Blood is clearly indicated. I suspect that Tiger Dog was shot in the vicinity of the trolley, and that the dog was then pushed closer to the wall where it would have continued to bleed. A DNA test of a blood sample from the trolley would establish whether the blood is human or non human.

                 

Photo 2                                                                                               Photo 3

My reasons for publishing evidence on this blog, at this pre-Inquest stage

Normally, one would go to a lawyer, and open a civil case against the Minister of Police.  I do not have funds for a lawyer at present. Human Rights organizations have been uninterested or unwilling to assist – including Legal Resources Centre, Wits Law Clinic and the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC). My income as a pensioner puts me outside the range of those who qualify for Pro Bono assistance arranged via the Cape Law Society.

Apart from getting a lawyer, one would not normally divulge information that one’s opponents could use, to prepare their own case.  The Inquest for the unnatural death of Michael Theodore Volkwyn , Athlone CAS 255/5/2015 could still take months before it gets to court.

On the other hand, the executor for Michael’s estate and his legal assistant seem prepared to sell Michael’s house as soon as they can.

Barbara and I know that selling the house will result in the destruction of physical evidence. We would still have photographic and other evidence, but the physical evidence could be lost forever.  It is for this reason that I believe I have no choice but to publish a significant amount of evidence at this stage.

the smashing of windows around the time Michael died

A video clip was taken, presumably with a smartphone camera, of the outside of Michael’s house during what we now know to be the last few minutes of his life.  Here is the link for this video clip on YouTube.

Windows were smashed on three sides of the house.   SAPS explained to Michael’s siblings afterwards that windows were smashed to get Michael to move to a specific part of the house, or words to that effect.  Barbara and I do not believe this – the safest part of the house is Michael’s bedroom.  To shoot Michael in his bedroom from outside the house, a marksman or sniper would have to fire through both the stoep window and the bedroom window (which had curtains), and the gunman would be visible from across the railway line.

During the siege, police occupied rooms of the neighbours at No. 8 and No. 12 and there were snipers on the roofs of these homes. Michael was thus vulnerable to being killed by a sniper had he moved in the kitchen, dining room, lounge , bathroom, toilet , small bedroom or bedroom no. 2 (which was originally my parents’ bedroom).

I spent hours watching CCTV footage of camera No. 15 which was in the kitchen. After Michael shot Leroy Scott, he never went back into the kitchen until the time the electricity to the home was cut shortly after 10AM on 13th May.  There was a pot of dog food cooking on the stove in the kitchen, when police officers and TRT/officers arrived outside Michael’s home shortly after 6 PM on 12th May.  Michael never fed the dogs that evening – the food was still in the pot when the family entered the home on the afternoon of 14th May.

I allege that windows were smashed to create noise to mask out the sounds Michael or his assailants may have made, when he was assaulted. While most journalists/reporters mentioned hearing two shots, some neighbours mentioned 4 and even 5 shots. However, the loud noise caused by the smashing of windows means that those close by cannot say with any certainty how many shots they heard.

For those of us behind the police cordon, we heard loud bangs, but those did not sound like the sharp crack of gunfire. Some reporters were unsure as to whether they heard gunshots or stun grenades.

I contacted two Audio Forensics companies, and asked whether the sound of breaking glass could be filtered out. Both doubted that it could be done, though one suggested I use bass and treble controls on an amplifier to find out if I could extract more information.  I then contacted two engineering professors who are or were experts in Digital Signal Processing, and asked whether Adaptive Filtering could remove the sounds of breaking glass. Both stated that one cannot filter out wide-band noise successfully, with adaptive filtering.  I intend to try using a band-pass filter, similar to the standard telephony filter which will allow voice frequency sounds to pass through and attenuate sounds at other frequencies.

additional photos of bullet hole in carpet, underfelt and floor

Photo of bullet hole in carpet, viewed from the top surface of the carpet.

Photo showing both bullet exit hole in carpet , with marker B (viewed from the underside of the carpet) and bullet entry hole in the underfelt, with marker C..

Photo showing bullet entry hole floor.

bullet hole in bedroom floor, bullet hole in wooden shelf against bedroom wall

People who commit suicide via a headshot are normally standing, seated on a chair or bed when they fire the shot.  One would expect the gun to be more or less horizontal, though a ballistics expert told me a person could sit on a bed, put the elbow on the bed, tilt the head sideways and downwards, and hold the gun such that it points upwards. In such a case, the bullet path after exiting the head is upwards, towards the ceiling, not vertically of course, but at an angle. He also said SAPS forensic experts use (or upon occasion make use of) a lifesize dummy to reconstruct a crime scene to determine possible firing angles.

The family found neither bullet holes nor blood spatter in the passage where SAPS alleges Michael was found dead. Barbara found two bullet holes in Michael’s bedroom.  One goes down into the carpet-underfelt-wooden floorboard and exits below the floorboard.  The other goes upwards, though Michael’s topmost shelf of his 3 shelves against the wall that separates the entrance passage from his bedroom.

Here is the shelf entry hole, photographed from the underside.

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Here are two photos of the shelf exit hole, one taken under good natural lighting and the other taken under poor light conditions, using a LED torch for illumination.

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I doubt if the shot that killed Michael was fired upwards, but will not give my reasons here.  Is this the shot that killed Tiger Dog? Tiger Dog is the name Michael gave to one of his dogs, an aggressive alpha-male type of dog according to persons who knew Michael well) and which Barbara and I believe was the dog killed by a policeman.

The bullet hole through the floor, is underneath Michael’s bed. The bullet hole does not go through the bed. Supposing someone did murder Michael on 13th May, and shot him while his head was against the carpet, the bed would have had to be lifted first, then Michael would have had to be forced down (unless he was already unconscious) and then the shot would have had to be fired.

When the family first entered the home after Michael’s death, his bed was turned upwards, and the longest edge of the bed was placed flat on the floor.  At the time, family members  thought that Michael may have done this to create a simple barricade, or that he had done so to give some shielding to the dogs that we thought may have been in his room during the siege.   The hole in the carpet was not noticed, as no hole was visible. Barbara can comment about how the hole looked when she first saw it.  Later a forensics specialist from a Crime Scene Investigations company pushed her finger through the carpet where the bullet had made a hole.

The first photo below is a photo taken from the underside of the floorboard, i.e. the bullet exit hole. Michael had a trapdoor in his bedroom and we went down through this trapdoor to examine the area beneath the floor of the bedroom.

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The next two photos were taken in the dark, after the underside of the floorboard area in the vicinity of the bullet exit hole was first sprayed with BlueStar. What is very remarkable, is that these photos indicate that blood had soaked right through the floorboard planks in this area.  Normally BlueStar shows blood that has been cleaned up somewhat, as small dots or even tiny dots.  Here, it is an area of several square centimetres that glowed in the dark.

Note that the blue colouring in the photo may not necessarily be very visible on your screen. Its very visible on my laptop screen, though only when the viewing angle is high) but not very visible (and the blue area is smaller) when viewed on my iPAD.

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It is alleged that wall-to-wall carpets were lifted, blood washed off floors, then carpets refitted.

I allege that the fitted wall-to-wall carpet in Michael’s bedroom was lifted, so that blood could be cleaned off it – sometime between the time of Michael’s death and before the family was first permitted to enter the home.  Both blood that had traveled along the top surface of the floorboards from where Michael had bled, as well as the diluted blood mixture from the cleaning of the walls, that ran down the walls, over the skirtings and then down the carpet edge onto the wooden floor, was cleaned off the floor. There is underfelt between the carpet and the wooden floorboards. In Michael’s bedroom, the floor is discoloured, and has brownish stains from blood.  There was also extensive cleaning of the carpet and floorboards in the passage, next to and close to the wall that divides Michel’s bedroom from the passage. The passage floor area cleaned was not where the pool of blood was found that was indicated as the spot where Michael was found, but this area is in the section of flooring that goes towards the dining room door that leads from the passage.

I will include once again the same diagram inserted in the previous blog post, as I need to indicate where Bedroom 2 is in relation to Michael’s bedroom, which is Bedroom No. 1 on the house floor plan.

Blood traveled along the top surface of floorboards but beneath the underfelt to Bedroom No. 2.  In Bedroom No. 2, blood on the top of the floorboards was damp and red more than 3 months after Michael’s death. It would appear that in this bedroom, the carpets were not lifted for the floorboards to be cleaned.

Evidence that disproves the suicide claim

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.

Michael designed weapons and ammunition for Govt.

I initially did not believe reports that Michael had military experience.  Major General Jeremy Veary had mentioned that Michael had military experience. I asked the Cape Argus newspaper to either furnish proof that Michael had military experience, or to retract the article, and apologize. The Cape Argus published an apology.

Michael designed weapons and ammunition for a Govt organization. This kind of work is often done in secret, and Michael’s work was done in complete secrecy. He was paid cash for work that he had done, as bank transfers leave records that can be traced. He was not issued with a firearm manufacturer’s license, as that too leaves traceable records.  In other words, though designing weapons for Govt., he was doing so illegally as he did not have the requisite license to manufacture firearms. When work is done secretly like this, the organization that commissions the work will never divulge details to journalists. So no newspaper will be able to verify from information provided by such an organization, that Michael ever did work for them.

Michael was really good at this work. He even updated a Wikipedia entry on an aspect of weapons design.

Ultimately, Michael’s murder can be linked to his contract/agreement to design and manufacture weapons.

Michael was definitely murdered.

A little over 24 hours after Michael’s death, before the family was permitted back into the house, Diana, Barbara and I went to Michel’s house to get his ID book. Without an ID book, we would not be permitted to identify the body at the mortuary, and we would not have been permitted to get the body released from the mortuary to go to the undertaker. There were two women at the entrance to Michael’s driveway, one dressed as a policewoman and the other in plain clothes. Both of them had been inside the Nyala Armoured Personnel Carrier the previous morning, when I went into the Nyala.

We exchanged some words.  The woman in plain clothes stated at one point: “Now we are building our case“. I forgot about her statement, but Barbara never forgot it.

Michael’s family now have evidence that he was murdered. What remains, is for us to be able to prove this beyond reasonable doubt. This will not be easy, given that police tampered with evidence.  I will not divulge details of what we have learnt over the past few weeks. I will not even give hints.  The Inquest will take place in some 3-6 months time. Its best that we do not let the police know what we know.  We, his family, are now building our case.