WINDHOEK – The trial in which a former teacher is accused of killing his wife in a knife attack was postponed to 16 October for submissions on the verdict to be delivered by Judge Alfred Siboleka in the High Court in Windhoek.
After De Jay gave evidence in his own defence in which he denied having stabbed his wife of 15 years, Tina de Jay one day before Valentine’s Day in 2009 it was the turn of state advocate Palmer Khumalo to cross-examine him. To the layman it might have looked like De Jay got off the best from the skirmish after he challenged the State to produce any direct evidence that linked him to the alleged murder. Said De Jay: “Show me the blood and my fingerprints on the knife you claim is the murder weapon.” He also rubbished the testimonies of two witnesses who claimed to have seen him in the car with his wife on that fateful day. One of the witnesses claimed to have seen De Jay and his wife in the front seat of his Dodge Chrysler at the murder site with De Jay allegedly making stabbing motions in the direction of the deceased. Both witnesses also claimed to have seen De Jay throw something ‘shiny’ away. But the accused stuck to his story that after he and his wife finished their meal he decided to take a walk on the bridge that crosses the Fish River and left his wife sitting in the shade next to the car.
He further said that when he looked up he saw two men running away from where his car was parked. According to De Jay, he was about 100m from his car and he immediately returned to it. According to De Jay he could clearly see that the two men had only socks on, which he described as white from toe to ankle and maroon from ankle to knee. He could however not identify the clothing they were wearing only saying that it was of a darkish colour.
During his testimony De Jay also said the knife the police found after searching for three days was not the knife he pulled out of his wife’s chest, but that it was a homemade knife with rubber tubing wrapped around the handle. He further said that he could not recall what he said at the scene of the crime, since he was in a state of shock and hysterical. “It was not a normal situation, something like this only happens once in a lifetime, the person I loved was attacked in a brutal manner by animals,” he said when questioned by Khumalo about why he told the people who came to assist him “they killed my wife, they killed my wife.”
On the statement he made to the magistrate after his arrest, wherein he claimed that his wife and he made a suicide pact, De Jay claimed that he was coached by the police on what to say. He said they gave him the basics and that he had to fill in the gaps.
According to him the police promised that he would be set free if he told the magistrate those “lies”. De Jay further told the court: “I told the police that not even a Grade 1 learner would believe such a story, but they said it would work, I believed them.”
Khumalo on the other hand told De Jay point blank that he spun that tale so that the police would go after the so-called hit men and not investigate him. Khumalo further said the whole story he told the magistrate was a figment of his imagination and the same with the story about the robbery. Why else would the robbers leave valuables such as a cellphone and cash of N$349 behind, he wanted to know.
Roland Routh