Windhoek
“I know nothing of the two stab wounds on the deceased’s back,” Joel Petrus, 33, who is accused of hacking his live-in girlfriend to death with a panga in Gobabis over a suspicious text message on her phone, said in court yesterday.
He was responding to Deputy Prosecutor General Jackson Kuutondokwa during cross-examination.
Petrus remained adamant that he only struck the deceased, Maria Erastus, three times with the panga and did not inflict the smaller stab wounds on her back.
According to Petrus, he was lying on the bed in the room he shared with the deceased after dinner when the deceased entered the room with the panga and hit him once on the left arm.
At first he thought he was cut, he said, and got up to take the deadly weapon from the deceased, but she resisted and they wrestled for it.
After that he managed to overpower her and take possession of the panga before striking the deceased on the left side of her neck, Petrus told the court.
He further said that he lost control of himself and that his heart “jumped out” when he hit the deceased with the panga.
“I thought I was hitting her with the blunt side of the panga,” he said, adding that he only realised that he cut her when she fell to the ground and he saw blood.
On a question from Kuutondokwa whether the deceased said anything when he cut her, Petrus replied: “She said nothing, she just stood there without saying anything or screaming and then she fell down and her whole body shook.”
During his testimony in his own defence, Petrus already indicated the deceased was alive when he covered her with a duvet and left her in the room to go look for help.
He told the court that he instead left for Windhoek after he heard that people were looking for him and he decided to inform his family in Windhoek about what had happened.
He was arrested in Windhoek the day after the murder.
On a question from Kuutondokwa why he covered the body. Petrus said it was because Gobabis gets cold and he did not want the deceased whom he loved very much to get cold.
The case has now been postponed to January 25 next year for Kuutondokwa to continue his cross-examination.
Petrus, who is in custody, faces one charge of murder read with the Combating of Domestic Violence Act for allegedly killing Erastus with a panga during the period August 04 to 05, 2012.
According to the post-mortem report Erastus had four deep cut wounds to her face and neck and two stab wounds to her back.
The stab wounds to her back penetrated her lungs and was potentially fatal, the doctor who conducted the post-mortem testified, adding that the cut wounds to her face and neck cut major blood vessels, leading to massive and fatal bleeding, while her spinal cord was also broken.
Petrus is represented by Boris Isaacks on instructions from legal aid and Judge Alfred Siboleka is on the bench.