"It feels like he took my heart out of my chest and chopped it up. I feel just enough to be able to love my husband and my family, but most of me is gone."
These were the words of Doris Weitz, mother of Gabriela Alban, giving evidence in the trial of her daughter's alleged killer, Diego Novella.
Alban was found dead in a Camps Bay hotel in July 2015.
- Murder accused Diego Novella believed aliens would take over the world“I’m not going” - The three-word SMS Gabriela Alban sent to her mother‚ Doris Weitz‚ 25 days before she was found dead in a Camps Bay hotel.
Throughout her testimony in the Cape Town High Court Weitz stared icily at Novella, who appeared unable to meet her gaze.
Weitz, a US State Department translator, was handed the photograph which showed "a hateful message" written on a note on her daughter's body.
Despite the nature of the image, Weitz remained composed, staring directly at Novella.
- Diego Novella's tattoo hints at US gang connectionA grey suit, blue tie and a blue scarf draped around his neck. It is Diego Novella's signature attire for his murder trial in the High Court in Cape Town.
"Can you read what the image says?" prosecutor Louise Freister Sampson asked.
"Cerote," Weitz read.
"And what does that translate to?" Sampson asked.
"Piece of shit," Weitz almost spat at Novella.
At this point Howdy Kabrins, her former husband, broke down, but Weitz stood proudly.
Novella was stony-faced throughout her testimony, looking straight ahead, glancing only briefly at Weitz.
Earlier in her testimony Weitz said that her daughter's relationship with Novella was one-sided and had left her daughter "emotionally and physically demolished".
- Distraught Gabriela Alban's dad faces his daughter's alleged killerHowdy Kabrins, the father of Gabriela Alban, stood tall in the witness box in the Cape Town High Court yesterday.
Alban, she said, was desperate to get to Cape Town, where she hoped to get treatment for Lyme disease.
In a series of SMS messages read aloud in court, Alban described the breakdown of her relationship with Novella.
"Diego's probably met somebody else. Who would want to be with me now, I'm some prize," Alban wrote.
"Things with Diego are beyond bad. His heart isn't with me. He broke my heart and stepped all over it. My eyes are swollen from crying," Alban wrote.
Weitz testified that the couple didn't seem "romantic" but "looked like two friends".
In December 2014, Alban arrived home in Los Angeles, seven months before her trip to South Africa, because her relationship with Novella was "over", according to Weitz.
But Alban remained "so in love" with Novella that she agreed to undergo the treatment for her illness in South Africa, hoping to rekindle their relationship.
On her arrival in Cape Town Alban said she "felt like Goldilocks" as she looked around the city.
This exchange was Weitz's last with her daughter, four days before her body was found in the Camps Bay hotel.
The case continues today.
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