'My lovely lady is dead,' murder-accused apparently told luxury Camps Bay hotel staff
Jenna Etheridge, News24
Gabriela Kabrins Alban. (Facebook)
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Cape Town – On the day that the body of US marketing executive Gabriela Kabrins Alban was found in a suite at a luxurious Camps Bay hotel, her Guatemalan roommate calmly told staff "my lovely lady is dead".
This was according to the testimony of Tarryn Wasmuth, who dealt with reservations at the Camps Bay Retreat Hotel, and where the 39-year-old was found dead in one of the suites on July 29, 2015.
Wasmuth said the deceased and Diego Novella had stayed in the same room.
On the afternoon of July 28, Kabrins Alban phoned her to make a tennis booking for Novella the following morning, she said.
The next morning, she received a call from their room just before 09:00.
"He had called to cancel his tennis appointment as he said he was not feeling well."
She got back from mid-morning tea, sat at her desk and looked out the window at the grass patch in front of her, between the main building and the spa building, where the sun loungers were.
Diego - wearing shorts, a t-shirt and slippers - was apparently pacing back and forth on the grass, smoking what she believed was a cigarette.
She thought nothing of the pacing.
Later that afternoon, she walked out the office and saw him sitting in an armchair at reception, chatting to the duty manager.
She stopped at the reception desk and heard him tell the manager: "My lovely lady is dead".
Again, she thought nothing of what he had said.
Asked by the State what the tone of his voice was, she said it seemed very calm and placid, nothing unusual.
"She [the duty manager] asked when did this happen. He said a little while ago."
Novella, dressed in a grey suit, with a navy blue scarf almost obscuring the '13' tattoo on his neck, kept his eyes cast down.
He recently pleaded not guilty to the murder.
The duty manager decided she would go across to their room to make sure everything was okay.
Wasmuth and a colleague left at the same time to walk down to the mountain pool. They returned around 10 minutes later, where she saw Novella smoking on the terrace a few metres away.
They got to the rope bridge and saw there were a lot of people at the room. Novella passed them, walked over the bridge and went to the room.
She did not see him again.
The defence said it was taken by surprise that "95%" of the witness' evidence-in-chief was not contained in her two statements they received.
Novella's lawyer William Booth accused the State of "ambushing" him.
He would need time to raise the new evidence with his client and get instructions.
Prosecutor Louise Friester-Sampson said much of the witness's evidence on Thursday came out of consultations in preparation for the trial.
"We are not obliged to re-take and re-take statements to cover all aspects. There is no malice from the State."
The trial would resume on Monday.
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