At about 6:30am the next day‚ Cornelius was lying by the borehole with her face in the ground. Her heart was pumping blood through two neck wounds‚ possibly from the swift penetrating thrust of a screwdriver‚ but this was not what killed her.
According to Dr Deirdre Abrahams‚ the forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Cornelius’s body‚ the fatal blows came when her murderers twice dropped the rock covering the borehole on the back of her head.
“The blunt force injuries to her head were very rapidly fatal‚” said Abrahams.
When Matthee and Booysen arrived at 8:20am‚ the area they had been working in the previous day before was a mess.
“I saw something that looked like a white bag. Then I saw it was a person‚” said Booysen.
They left to find the foreman‚ who thought it was a doll lying on the ground. But they soon realised it was a young woman.
Cornelius’s jeans were pulled halfway down. There were bruises on her knees and legs‚ and bruising on her arms from the strong grip of the men who had killed her.