Van Breda trial may hang on girl's frail memory

What happens next in the Henri van Breda murder trial will depend on medical science and his surviving sister Marli's memory, should she be called to the witness stand.

After the first week of the triple murder trial, events in the Van Breda family home in Stellenbosch on the night of January 26 2015 have crystallised into two distinct stories.

Only Marli would be able to confirm if the true story is one of a laughing, axe-wielding madman hacking to death Martin and Teresa van Breda and their son Rudi; or whether Henri went on a crazy killing spree, hacking at each member of his family with a small axe.

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Observers speculated that Henri might plead not guilty, possibly with a defence of temporary insanity. But after he entered a straightforward not guilty plea in the High Court in Cape Town on Monday, Marli's memory —- she is said to be suffering from severe retrograde amnesia — is even more crucial.

According to neuropsychologist Glen Johnson, who wrote the Traumatic Brain Injury Survival Guide, "amnesia means you lost a memory that you once had. It's as if someone has erased part of your past. Retrograde amnesia specifically means you have lost memories of events prior to the incident."

For some people, retrograde amnesia can cover just a minute or even a few seconds, but for others it may affect longer periods.

Johnson describes one patient who "lost the last year of his life", but said that "as people get better, long-term memories tend to return ... like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle — in random order".

One question around Marli's condition has dogged scientists for decades: is the problem that the memory is not stored, or that it is stored somewhere inaccessible?

Is it possible Marli will ever remember what happened that fateful night?

Johnson runs psychological memory tests on patients and has generally found that "for two years following a head injury, there is evidence of improving scores". After that, no or only very subtle changes take place.

What Judge Siraj Desai expects to be "a very long and difficult trial" resumes on Tuesday, and another significant issue will be the admissibility of Henri's statement to the police on the morning of January 27, when he alleges he sat shivering, dressed only in boxer shorts, as he was aggressively questioned in an ice-cold room.

In his plea explanation, Henri set the stage for a dispute over his signed statement to police, the contents of which have not yet been revealed, as well as the conduct of officers.

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He said that on the way to the Stellenbosch police station, "I overheard them saying that Marli had been administered a drug that makes her 'wide awake and telling us everything'".

At the police station, he claimed an officer asked a doctor if it would be possible to say his wounds were self-inflicted, and the doctor replied that she "sal sien wat ons kan doen [would see what we can do]".

Then, he alleged, he was moved to a cold room, and when Colonel Deon Beneke walked in he said he "does not believe a word of [my] bull***t story", adding that Marli was "telling them everything".

Eventually, Henri claimed, even though his typed statement "was not correct in all aspects, I did not want to sit around correcting the officers and reliving the trauma of the night before with another retelling of what had happened".

At no stage was he told he had the right to remain silent or to legal representation, he said, and he had been "severely prejudiced" by the police, who were now "holding me to each and every word contained in a statement that was taken from me".

In the indictment, which saw Henri arrested a year and a half after the murders, it was claimed that his wounds were self-inflicted, that the perimeter of the luxury estate where the family lived had not been breached, and that there was no forced entry into the family home.

It also said that blood of the deceased family members was found on the socks and boxer shorts that Henri was wearing when police arrived.