Eighteen-year-old Charmaine Mare slipped on a bath mat and never regained consciousness, murder accused Johannes Christiaan de Jager told the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday.
Pleading not guilty to killing her, he said the accident on Friday, January 11, this year had left him panicked and confused.
His girlfriend, her daughter and his son had been away on a boat cruise since January 7.
He and Mare, who was staying there on holiday, were alone in the house. He admitted to making sexual advances and to the best of his knowledge, touching or rubbing her arm.
He said he did not sexually assault or have sex with her at any stage.
That Friday, he intended driving to Cape Town harbour to pick up the family from their cruise. The agreement was that Mare would accompany him.
In the plea explanation, he said he repeatedly asked Mare to rise and get dressed but that she was taking too long to get ready.
He became frustrated because he knew there would be a lot of traffic.
He reversed his car out of the garage then walked back into the house.
Mare was apparently fully dressed and sitting in the bathroom with her cellphone.
De Jager said that because she was delaying them, he grabbed her on the right arm and pulled her towards the bathroom door.
"She lost her balance, and/or she slipped on the mat and as a result, she fell against the rim of the bath and she lay there motionless," he said in the statement, which was translated from Afrikaans.
He said it happened very quickly and he could not say for certain which part of her body hit the rim.
He shook her head from side to side, felt for a pulse on her neck and came to the conclusion she was dead.
De Jager said he was scared and eventually decided to hide her body in a drain outside the house.
He pleaded guilty to cutting off her lower legs and forearms to allow the body to fit into the drain, and also to taking her corpse that Sunday to a field in Kraaifontein, where he set it alight.
Her torso was discovered by bystanders on January 14.
He admitted there was no legal excuse for dismembering the body and that he knew at all times that it was unlawful and punishable.
He also pleaded guilty to stealing her cellphone rather than assaulting and robbing her of it, as stated in the charge sheet.
De Jager earlier denied raping and killing 18-year-old prostitute Hiltina Alexander in Parow, in May 2008.
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