It took state Advocate Susan Galloway exactly three minutes to undo the scenario that her opponent Mathys Combrink spent hours building in defence of triple axe murder accused Henri van Breda.
The morning of day five of the murder trial was spent on Combrink detailing a security system so flawed that an intruder could easily have permeated the boundary without being detected.
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Combrink's argument - in the High Court in Cape Town - rested on flood damage to the fence‚ false alarms from animals and branches‚ and an allusion to an alleged tampering of the system at 1pm on January 26‚ 2015.
Galloway‚ however‚ asked state witness and security guard on duty during the night of the murders‚ Lorenzo Afrika‚ whether there was indeed flood damage.
"No‚'' Afrika replied.
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She also asked him if the fence showed any sign of interference when he came on duty at about 7pm on the night before the murder.
Again‚ he replied: "No."
His first inkling that anything strange had happened was when he knocked off at 7am‚ said Afrika‚ and he saw his shift leader driving in.
"I didn't know what it was about … I only found out about [the murders] the next day when I came back on duty‚" he said.
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Van Breda stands accused of murdering his parents and older brother and attempting to murder his sister at the family's upmarket home in a gated estate in Stellenbosch.
Galloway's questioning came in the wake of approximately four hours of cross-examination by Combrink on the security at the estate.
Afrika had answered more than 50 questions ranging from the banal to the highly technical.
"I have to test electricity on 15 zones of the 43 every day‚ and they always have to be different ones‚" he said.
He uses a metal rod to set off the fence and a Namtek tester which measures voltage.
"There were no interruptions that evening‚" he said‚ "and no alarms went off."
At one stage Combrink wanted to know whether Afrika had walked clockwise or anti-clockwise around the fence.
This is when Judge Siraj Desai intejected‚ asking Combrink where he intended to go with his questioning.
The case resumes on Thursday when a De Zalze estate security manager will take the stand to answer questions about alleged alarms which were triggered on the perimeter fence and a power outlet which was unplugged in the kiosk where the energisers which power the fence are housed.
TMG Digital/TimesLIVE
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