Cape Town - The Clanwilliam man who killed Allison Plaatjies appeared in the Western Cape High Court where the Sederberg Primary School cleaner gave insights into the kind of person the teacher was.
Anna Moton, 61, said she’d been working at the school since 2013 but only knew Plaatjies as a teacher. While they were not friends, she was “with her” when Phillip April came to the school on October 26, 2019 – the day Plaatjies was killed.
Moton said she arrived at the school around 7am and Plaatjies arrived minutes later, as Moton was preparing for a workshop to be held at the school from 9am to 2pm.
“I went to the worskhop because I had to prepare for the tea, to ensure that the cups and saucers were in order,” she said.
In a bittersweet moment, Moton testified that Plaatjies, 26, referred to her as “Auntie Anna” and there had been no arrangement between the two for Plaatjies to assist her that day but she arrived hours before the workshop just to help her.
While advocate Renee Uys questioned her, she said: “I asked her why did she come so early? Then she told me, she came to help me,” Moton said with a warm smile.
She told the court that Plaatjies seemed surprised when April arrived a few minutes later as they stood outside the school. He asked Plaatjies for her house keys because he wanted to do her laundry.
“She was surprised that he wanted to wash her clothes and wanted the car keys from her. I could see in her face, she was pale in her face,” Moton said.
She said Plaatjies instructed April to get the house keys out of the car and then return the car keys to Moton, which he did.
“I kept them until the workshop was done,” she testified.
When April’s lawyer Office Mtini told her that his client usually did Plaatjies’ laundry and it was nothing out of the ordinary, Moton said she didn’t ask Plaatjies why she was surprised and didn’t question her any further on it.
April has been charged with two counts of murder and theft, and has since handed in a statement as part of his formal admissions, confessing to her murder.
The trial continues today.