Africa-Press – South-Africa. Not guilty – this was the finding of the Western Cape High Court in the case of the State against Jeremy Sias, accused of the murder of Cape Town equestrian Meghan Cremer.
The prosecution’s circumstantial case against Sias, a farmworker employed as a general worker on the smallholding where Cremer lived, was not enough to convict.
Judge Elizabeth Baartman said some of the officers involved in the case had breached their duty to respect and uphold the law by omitting evidence that they thought might assist the accused.
“In doing so, they have probably inadvertently advanced the accused’s cause, instead of the cause of justice,” she said.
“There is no onus on the accused. His version of how he found the body, in the circumstances of this matter where the police suppressed information, cannot be rejected as not reasonably possibly true.”
He was found guilty of the theft of Cremer’s car and handbag, defeating the ends of justice, and stealing money from her account.
Sias nodded his head in relief after being acquitted on the main charge.
“The truth came out. I am happy,” he said in Afrikaans, as he was cuffed before being returned to the holding cells.
He has been behind bars since 5 August 2019, two days after Cremer went missing.
He was pointed out to members of the police’s K9 Unit, who had spotted her stolen car, without number plates, as they conducted crime prevention patrols.
The driver had told officers he had gotten the car from “Bompie”, who had wanted him to find a buyer for it.
Sias, in his denial of the murder charge, claimed he had found Cremer’s car with the key in the ignition on 3 August 2019 when he returned to Vaderlandsche Rietvlei Farm to collect dog food he had stored during his shift that day.
He took the car for a joyride, he maintained, and stole her belongings before discovering her dead body in the boot.
He disposed of the body, and days later pointed out to police where he had laid her in the bushes in Olieboom Road, Philippi.
The ribbon used to strangle her was still wound around her neck.
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