A long-buried crime has caught up with a Western Cape man after forensic science linked him to a fatal 2012 attack.
A Western Cape man who managed to evade arrest for 12 years has been sentenced to 20 years’ direct imprisonment for raping and murdering a 55-year-old woman.
The Oudtshoorn Regional Court handed 28-year-old Shaun Romano Keyser a 10-year sentence for the rape of Anna Abrahams and another 10 years for culpable homicide.
For years, the mystery of who raped Abrahams, murdered her, and left behind her half-naked body remained unsolved.
The woman’s body was found by a member of the public on Buitekant Street at 7am on 11 February 2012.
National Prosecuting Authority regional spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said post-mortem results revealed that the deceased had been raped and that the cause of death was alcohol intoxication.
“DNA evidence was taken from her body. Police made no arrests in the case,” Ntabazalila said in a statement on Tuesday.
Suspect lived freely in the same town
Meanwhile, Keyser – who was 16 when he committed the crimes – walked around the streets of Prince Albert and past the Abrahams’ house regularly as he kept the secret to himself.
Abrahams’ unsuspecting family had no idea that her murderer was someone known to them, a homeless Keyser.
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Keyser’s 2024 arrest links him to 2012 case
This continued until DNA evidence linked him to the gruesome crimes when he was arrested for theft in an unrelated 2024 case.
“The DNA evidence linked him to the deceased’s rape and murder, and these results set the wheels of justice in motion,” Ntabazalila said.
Police subsequently arrested him on 19 June 2024 and charged him with rape and murder.
Ntabazalila said Keyser made a warning statement as well as a confession, where he said that he was 16 years old at the time, and claimed that two older co-accused forced him to have sex with Abrahams.
He further claimed that he complied with the instruction as they threatened him, but denied killing the woman.
A second opinion helps secure justice
After studying the docket, regional court prosecutor Hyron Goulding was unhappy with the doctor’s findings on the cause of death and approached a medical professional known as Dr Hurst for a second opinion.
“The previous doctor found the cause of death as intoxication because the deceased’s blood alcohol content was very high – it was 0.31g per 100ml,” the NPA spokesperson said.
Goulding asked Hurst if Abrahams would have been able to give legal consent to sex with that much alcohol in her system.
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In response, Hurst wrote a supplementary affidavit where she indicated that people with blood alcohol levels above 0.31 g per 100ml are “very heavily intoxicated and can be stuporous or comatose”.
Hurst added that their mood would be apathetic with mental confusion, drowsiness, and disorientation.
In that intoxicated state, a person is not expected to think clearly, and she could not give consent for sex, the doctor explained.
Goulding also asked if Hurst could establish whether there was evidence that the deceased was murdered or not?
Hurst found that the deceased had blood spots on her heart and lungs, which indicated death by suffocation.
“While being sodomised, she would have been forced to face downwards and most likely was unable to breathe as her airways would have been obstructed. I therefore do believe that she was murdered, the perpetrator knowing that she was not in a state to give any resistance or defend herself,” Hurst wrote in her reply.
DNA and cross-examination dismantled defence
Ntabazalila said the prosecutor’s insistence on a second opinion helped strengthen the state’s case.
He said Keyser‘s cross-examination also proved that he lied about the events that took place, the other two people he attempted to implicate, and that he had different versions of the incident.
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Police traced the two individuals he claimed forced him to have sex with the Abrahams, and DNA results excluded them, as only his DNA was found on her body.
“Police had no evidence against the other persons except the word of Keyser, who kept quiet for 12 years.”
Goulding argued that the accused had ample time to report the alleged threats and the so-called real culprits to the police on several occasions over the past 12 years, but failed to do so.
Ntabazalila said the case was a clear example of how science and the law come together in successfully solving crime through DNA evidence.
He said Abrahams’ family had prayed for years that the culprit would be found.
“When the state cross-examined him and asked him why he kept quiet, he said he was waiting for the police to come to him,” Ntabazalila said.
“If it were not for the doctor who gave the new evidence as to the new cause of death, the accused would have gotten away with the murder charge because the only evidence on the murder charge was that the cause of death was intoxication, meaning she drank herself to death.
“The state would have been forced to withdraw the murder charge, but fortunately, it worked out well for the state.”
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