Jayde Panayiotou's bank account looted the day she was murdered

Port Elizabeth - Somebody withdrew R3 500 from school teacher Jayde Panayiotou’s bank account the day she was killed, according to testimony at her husband Christopher’s trial on Tuesday.

An unsuccessful attempt to withdraw R3 000 was made at 07:25 that day, Nedbank’s Johannes Thomas told the Eastern Cape High Court in Port Elizabeth. He was being questioned by prosecutor Marius Stander.

The attempt was made at a Nedbank ATM at the Picardi centre in KwaNobuhle, near Uitenhage. Another try with a different card was recorded at 7:26 and also declined.

Panayiotou, Sinethemba Nenembe and Zolani Sibeko are on trial on charges of conspiring, kidnapping, robbing, and killing Jayde on April 21, 2015. They pleaded not guilty. The alleged hitman, Sizwezakhe Vumazonke, died in September.

But by lowering the amounts requested and using different ATMs, the person using her cards managed to withdraw R3 500 in three separate transactions. Two were for R1 500 and one was for R500.

The transactions stopped at 12:55 on April 21.

The court heard on Monday that the car Jayde’s alleged killers used stopped outside her Stellen Glen complex in Deacon Road, Kabega Park, at 06:29 that morning. It was driven out of town and stopped at 07:13.

Jayde was kidnapped from outside the complex while waiting for her colleague to give her a lift to Riebeek College Girls' High School in Uitenhage, where they both worked.

At the beginning of the trial, Stander said three shots were heard in a veld in KwaNobuhle, around 07:00 that day.

Last week, the court heard that investigators failed to get a picture of who used the ATM in KwaNobuhle. No activity was found on the ATM’s recording device at the time of the withdrawal.

When another Nedbank ATM about 2km away was checked, at Big Daddys liquor store, an image was obtained of a person withdrawing money at the time of the transaction. It turned out the person had nothing to do with the case.

It was due to a time discrepancy of 20 minutes between the ATM and its recorder. When this was factored in, activity was noted, but the image was deemed unusable as the person was unrecognisable.

The trial was adjourned early and would continue on Wednesday.