Public outrage could not sway the Simons’ Town Magistrates’ Court from granting a teenager accused of murdering his girlfriend’s mother bail yesterday.
Kyle Maspero, 18, and Phoenix Racing Cloud Theron, 19, are accused to murdering Cape Town stilt walker Rosemary Theron in a matricide case that shook the sleepy coastal suburb of Clovelly in September last year. The two have been in custody since their arrest and only Mapero applied for bail.
The state opposed the application and painted Maspero as a flight risk who was also out of “control”, saying the murder was premeditated and had sparked public outrage.
“The court must not withhold bail to punish the accused,” said magistrate Crystal McKenna yesterday.
“The court will accept that the public will be outraged but will not be swayed. The accused will tried in a court of law and not in a court of public opinion. The court finds that the defence has provided compelling circumstances.”
McKenna said Maspero had a fixed address, would have a job if released from jail and that it was the first time he had been arrested. She dismissed the state’s argument that he was a flight risk, saying Maspero’s face had been widely published in newspapers and that he did not have an identity document or passport. She granted Maspero R3 000 bail.
McKenna took into cognisance the fact that the investigation was yet to be completed, that the cause of death was inconclusive and there was a “problem with DNA report”.
Maspero’s bail application opened a window into his troubled upbring. He parents divorced when he was one year old. His mother died when he was seven and he was adopted by her boyfriend, but was sent to live with his grandmother after he accidentally set alight a neighbour’s home.
Theron was reported missing in March last year and her body was discovered in a shallow grave in Strandfontein is September. According to the state, Maspero and Phoenix conspired to kill Theron while they were under the influence of drugs. Phoenix allegedly hugged Theron after an argument and Maspero crept up from behind and strangled the mother with a rope. Co-accused Godfrey Scheepers, 20, told the police that Maspero had asked him to help bury the body.
Gregory Spannenberg, a Correctional Services officer, declared Maspero fit for correctional supervision. Spannenberg recommended that he be held under house detention.
“The house detention shall not apply during the reasonable absence from his residential address for the following reasons: the daily performance of employment, the attendance of bona fide religious services [and] attendance at any educational institution,” said Spannenberg.
Maspero and his co-accused will be back in court on April 11.
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