Amnesty Hearings — Durban — 2000-07-21

CHAIRPERSON: Those dates there, just for clarity Ms Miller, are they dates that the body was found?

STEPHANIE MILLER: Yes, that's correct.
We discarded the first one because the cause of death was not ...(indistinct) and it was prior to the date of her disappearance.  It turned out subsequently.  The second person, a very similar scenario was found in KwaMashu area, but it had been strangled and was a child, it was a new born child, which we couldn't tell from the initial records.  Or didn't note from the original records.
		The second book was of greater value to us, because it was during the period, it was from May until August, I believe, and most of the woman recorded in that book had either at the time been identified or subsequently someone had come and identified them.  And in most cases, the person identifying them had arranged the burial, they hadn't been buried as paupers.  So we'd eliminated them.
		465, in terms of age and height was inappropriate, she'd also been stabbed and found in a different area.  	514, although the age could have been correct, we understood that Ntombi was overweight and 60 kilos didn't seem to indicate being considerably overweight, but she was also a victim of a motor accident.  So whilst a person being disposed of on the road could have been a victim and subsequently run over by a vehicle, it was also freshly brought into the mortuary and not a decomposed body, and given the dates that we knew that Ntombi had disappeared and that she had died immediately, there was no possibility that this would have been the body.  
		Subsequently, some of those listed were from hospital and 580 was the most likely candidate when we completed our search through the books.  The person had not been identified, had been buried in a pauper's grave, had been brought in approximately two months after disappearance.  
		According to the forensic pathologist, the decomposition as recorded would have been appropriate for somebody who had died two months previously, could have died two months previously.  We extracted the post-mortem that Dr Chetty did and it appeared very sketchy, but unfortunately Dr Chetty had since died, so we weren't able to interview him and find out what level of post-mortem had been held."

MS THABETHE: Sorry, Mrs Miller, you've referred to the post-mortem of Dr Chetty, for the record it's on page 71 of bundle 2, and you've referred to it as being scanty or sketchy.

STEPHANIE MILLER: Yes.

MS THABETHE: Why do you say that?

STEPHANIE MILLER: Well if you have a look through it, it doesn't appear as if an extensive post-mortem relative to the other post-mortem reports had been held, and I wasn't sure how much was done if a body was brought in after it had decomposed and I then asked people who did these sort of things in the mortuary, what sort of level of post-mortem would be held on a completely decomposed body.

CHAIRPERSON: Is it the same one that also appears on page 67?  It probably makes more sense than the one that appears on page 71.

STEPHANIE MILLER: It is the same one.

MS THABETHE: Okay you were still saying you made enquiries from other people who worked there.

STEPHANIE MILLER: And it appeared that when a body is brought in with that level of decomposition, very often it's difficult to do a post-mortem.

MS THABETHE: Would this tie in with ...(intervention)

MR LAX: Could I just ask something?
	Are you saying it's difficult to do the post-mortem, or the officials who are supposed to do those kinds of post-mortems don't like to do them because of obvious reasons?  I mean the decomposition, etcetera.  We know a post-mortem was done subsequently, by Dr Naidoo.

STEPHANIE MILLER: Correct.

MR LAX: And we have seen, I've certainly seen other post-mortems done by Prof Botha and others where bodies were in pretty advanced stages of decomposition, but it takes a pretty dedicated pathologist to want to do that.

STEPHANIE MILLER: Well it's conjecture on my part, but I would presume that because of the level of decomposition, this is not a pleasant experience and Dr Chetty possibly elected to do it in as simple manner as possible.  And it appears that the body was given immediately thereafter to the collection agency for a pauper's burial, without any attempt to find anybody to identify the deceased.  So it appeared that they wanted to dispose of the body as quickly as possible.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry to keep interrupting, Ms Miller, this post-mortem on page - take a look at page 67 and page 71, they're not the same.

STEPHANIE MILLER: They are the same.

CHAIRPERSON: Well you see on page 71 it says
"Undetermined"

STEPHANIE MILLER: Yes, the cause of death.

CHAIRPERSON: But I'm trying to find that on page 67, the one that appears there, and I don't see it.  I'm just wondering ...(intervention)

STEPHANIE MILLER: This is part of the same post-mortem.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, but I see the one's typed and the one's written.  So this typed copy isn't - the typed version isn't the copy of the written version, they're different?

STEPHANIE MILLER: No, it's a continuation, it forms part of the same post-mortem.

CHAIRPERSON: Does it form part?

STEPHANIE MILLER: Yes.

CHAIRPERSON: So he wrote some and then typed some?  Or part of it.

STEPHANIE MILLER: Correct.

CHAIRPERSON: Okay.  'Cause that signature at the bottom, is Dr Chetty's signature, on page 71?

STEPHANIE MILLER: Correct, Dr Chetty was the district surgeon in Verulam.

MS THABETHE: Would this, Mrs Miller, tie in ... (interven-tion)

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry.  Because I'm just trying to get - this typed copy obviously was typed originally on some proforma form, because it makes no sense when you read it here, I mean, you know it just says
"Undetermined.  Completely deposed(sic)"
and it doesn't relate to anything.  Do you see what I'm getting at?  It's a carbon copy from a form, but it's not from ...

MR LAX: The actual printing on the form is missing.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes.

STEPHANIE MILLER: I believe we might be able to access the original copy.

CHAIRPERSON: One would image that it was a similar form to the form on page 67.

STEPHANIE MILLER: I believe I can access the original copy if you'd like to see that.

CHAIRPERSON: Yes, thanks.  Yes, you can continue.

MS THABETHE: Let's proceed.  Mrs Miller, would this tie in with what Mohammed has said in his statement?  Mohammed Ismail, on paragraph 4, that
"When a body was brought into the mortuary in a decomposed state and there was no indication by documentation accompanying the body that the person was shot or murdered, the district surgeon or the doctor would often not do a post-mortem, but would view the body and the cause of death was often noted as undetermined."
Would this tie in with what happened with Dr Chetty, with regard to this body?

STEPHANIE MILLER: I contacted Mr Ismail who was a serving member of the South African Police Force, and he was in fact the member who received the body into the mortuary on that date and he advised me that it was common practice for Dr Chetty to do exactly that.

MS THABETHE: Okay.  Can you proceed then with what happened thereafter, after you had identified the body that fitted the criteria?

STEPHANIE MILLER: I wrote to - I motivated them to do an exhumation of this grave-side, the grave site at Stanger, at Charlotteville, Charlottedale, and contacted the authorities who controlled this, so that we could identify, to make sure that the grave site could be suitably identified before we apply for exhumation.

CHAIRPERSON: Sorry, what's that place called, Charlotte?

STEPHANIE MILLER: Charlottedale cemetery in Groutville.

CHAIRPERSON: Whereabouts is that?

STEPHANIE MILLER: It's next to Stanger hospital, it's controlled by Stanger hospital.
	At that time it appeared that the State had given Tongaat Hearse Services a contact to bury unidentified bodies and paupers' graves at Charlottedale.