INQUEST: ‘She blinked at me’ — witness recounts finding Anele Tembe alive after fall

A witness on Monday told the Cape Town Magistrates’ Court about the last moments of chef and aspiring businesswoman Anele Tembe (22), who died after falling from the 10th floor of a Cape Town hotel while in the company of her boyfriend, the rapper Kiernan “AKA” Forbes, who was gunned down in Durban in February 2023.

Robert Stefanutto was testifying at the inquest into Tembe’s death, which was initially treated as suicide. He was the only one of the six witnesses who testified on Monday who agreed to have his name published in the media.

Stefanutto told the court that on the morning of 11 April 2021, he was sitting on a couch in his flat, drinking coffee and watching the news on TV, when he heard a heated argument between a man and a woman coming from the nearby Pepperclub Hotel.

The shouting grew louder, and he heard a woman scream: “Leave me alone, get away from me.” Then he heard wailing, followed by a loud bang and a man shouting, “My God, my God.”

Rushing to his terrace, Stefanutto saw a body lying on the pavement outside the hotel. He ran down to the street, assuming the woman had died.

However, while on the phone with the Pepperclub's owner, he caught the subtle movement of her left hand beneath the sheet covering her, which had been placed there by one of the hotel’s security guards.

“I knelt down next to her body and told the security guards not to look. I pulled the sheets back, and she was alive – her eyes were open,” he testified. “[I] said, ‘If you can’t speak, blink.’ And she blinked at me.

“I told her to stay calm and called emergency services for medical help. While we waited, I tried to clear her airway and instructed her to breathe slowly and shallowly, knowing the heavy blood loss likely pointed to internal injuries,” he said.

Stefanutto added that the woman was naked under the sheet, with a severely injured leg and blood pooling from her mouth.

Blood in the hotel room 

Two police officers who entered Room 1004, where Tembe and Forbes were staying, testified that the room was in disarray, with items strewn across the floor.

Their observations aligned with Forbes’ account that the couple had been involved in a heated argument that began the previous night and continued into the morning of Tembe’s death.

Forbes told police the argument centred on Tembe’s father pressuring her to marry him.

He stated that he retreated to the bathroom during the argument and that Tembe, who was standing on the balcony, threatened to jump – a threat he did not take seriously, as she had allegedly made a similar threat before in Durban.

When the situation escalated, Forbes called the hotel’s front desk for help, telling staff that a woman was threatening to jump from the balcony.

When he emerged from the bathroom, Tembe was gone. He walked out onto the balcony, looked down, and saw her body lying on the pavement below.

However, testimony from one of the police officers on Monday added another dimension to that account. The officer testified that he could smell alcohol when he entered the room.

“There was a 30cm-wide blood stain on the bedding, blood stains on the towels, a champagne bottle with its neck with blood around it in the middle, and blood spots in the bathroom,” he told the court.

The officer said Forbes was fully clothed and the officer did not see any injuries on him.

Front desk’s account

The final witness of the day was a hotel front-desk employee, who said that at about 7.30am, she received a frantic call from a man shouting: “Please send the security. There is a woman who wants to jump from the balcony.”

She recognised the caller as Forbes, whom she had met earlier.

“While I was talking, I heard a scream in the background and a loud bang. I immediately hung up the phone after hearing the bang,” she said.

One of her colleagues looked through the blinds and ran back to tell them that a person had fallen and was lying outside the hotel.

The witness went outside with a security guard to cover Tembe’s body. She said they could not immediately identify her because her face was badly disfigured.

Tembe’s family was not present in court on Monday. The inquest will continue on Wednesday, 9 September. Between 20 and 30 witnesses are expected to testify. DM