The murder trial of slain Bay mother Vicki Terblanche continued in the High Court in Gqeberha on Wednesday.
Vicki's boyfriend at the time of her death, Reinhardt Leach, is facing charges of murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances, as well as the illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition.
The state called Dr Annemarie Mattheus, a specialist forensic pathologist at the Mount Road mortuary, to the stand.
She told the court that she had conducted hundreds of autopsies in her career.
Mattheus told the court that she conducted the autopsy on 25 October 2021 (a week after Vicki's death).
She said Vicki's body was in an advanced stage of decomposition with no antemortem injuries, suggesting that she was not hurt before she died. Vicki also had her period as a tampon, which was not immediately visible, was discovered during her routine exam to check for sexual assault.
She furthermore stated that due to the state of decomposition, she could only take a sample from Vicki's bile, stomach contents and a blood sample to test for drugs.
Mattheus sent the samples to Cape Town, and the result found six different types of drugs in Vicki's system.
She told the court that Vicki had traces of alprazolam, prescribed for anxiety, lamotrigine, an anti-convulsion medication to control seizures in people diagnosed with epilepsy, a very high level of methamphetamine, methaqualone, also known as Mandrax, Norvenlafaxine and Effexor, both anti-depressants of which she had high levels.
According to the pathologist, Vicki died from "multi-drug intoxication". Leach's defence Advocate, Jodene Coertzen, asked questions about the allegations that Vicki had been suffocated with a pillow.
In response, Dr Mattheus said if a person with no drugs in their system were smothered to death with a pillow, it would show haemorrhage in the victim's face and eyes, but due to Vicki's advanced stage of decomposition, she could not see signs of suffocation, adding that Vicki would have been.
When Coertzen asked about the so-called "perkies", allegedly given to Vicki, she responded that she could only comment on the report given to her by the lab in Cape Town.
Dr Mattheus noted that Vicki still had her jewellery on: two bracelets, one earring, a necklace, and a ring, which they could not remove and thus left on the body.
The trial was postponed to 11 February, when the state will call its next witness.
Listen to the Algoa FM News Exclusive Podcast, Journey to Justice, to catch up on this case.
