Details about what happened the night Renelda Alien Oamite Hoeses, who was 22 at the time of her demise, lost her life emerged on Friday during a trial-within-a-trial in which the man accused of her murder disputes a statement he made to the police.
Edmund Jagger, 26, who is accused of murdering Hoeses, his girlfriend and mother of his child, claims he did not narrate the information contained in the statement in his trial before Judge Alfred Siboleka in the Windhoek High Court.
According to Jagger, the disputed statement was only brought to him to sign the Friday following his arrest on Saturday March 2, 2013, while he was in the holding cells at Otjiwarongo Police Station.
He was arrested at the Otjiwarongo State Hospital after he allegedly tried to commit suicide after he killed Hoeses.
The police officer who took the warning statement from Jagger testified on Friday that he completed the statement from information he got from Jagger during an interview in his office. Detective Sergeant Linus Neliwe told the court Jagger was very calm and cooperative when the interview took place.
“We spoke in Afrikaans, the accused’s preferred language and understood each other very well,” Neliwe told the court. He further informed the court that after he warned Jagger of all his rights Jagger told him he just wanted to tell what happened. The detective added that he stopped Jagger immediately and warned him of his right not to incriminate himself, that he was not obliged to make a statement and could have a lawyer present.
“But he told me he will only need a lawyer at the trial and only wished to tell what transpired,” he narrated.
According to Neliwe, Jagger then started to tell him that the problems between him and Hoeses started after they went to Okahandja for a wedding in September 2012. According to Jagger, the detective said, the family of Hoeses left him behind in Okahandja after the wedding and he had to get a lift with his father-in-law (father of Hoeses) to Otjiwarongo the next day.
When he arrived at the room he shared with Hoeses, she accused him of having a love affair in Okahandja and chased him away, he said. Jagger then left the room and went to stay at another room, the statement reads.
During January 2013 Hoeses contacted Jagger via SMS and asked him to come see her. Jagger and Hoeses then started communicating again at that time.
According to the statement the “feud” between Jagger and Hoeses started again during the last week of February and Jagger went to the room off Hoeses on the Friday night (March 1) between 21h00 and 22h00, but she locked herself inside the room. Her father then asked him to leave, which he did, Jagger allegedly stated according to the detective.
“I then went to a bar and bought myself a bottle of brandy and started drinking,” Jagger allegedly told Neliwe. At around 01h30 he went back to the room of Hoeses and found the door open and her lying on the bed with their baby son, the detective said he was told by Jagger. Jagger and Hoeses started fighting and the fight moved outside the room. “That is when I took out the knife I brought with me and started to stab the deceased several times until she fell down to the ground,” Jagger said in the statement.
According to the statement, Jagger then took the child and left him with the cousin of the deceased, and then went back to his room. He left the deceased there on the ground still alive, it was stated.
According to the statement Jagger told the detective “I was very drunk and decided to kill myself by hanging from a wire and the next thing I remember is being in hospital.”
Jagger is denying that he gave the information to the detective and says it was drawn up and brought to him to sign only.
Neliwe however maintained that he compiled the statement from information he got from Jagger and that Jagger signed the statement in his presence on March 4, 2013 in his office.
According to the charge sheet Jagger killed Hoeses by stabbing her 18 times.
According to the summary of substantial facts in the indictment, after the attack, it is stated, Jagger fled the scene and attempted to commit suicide.
Jagger is represented by Joshua Kaumbi on instructions of the Department of Legal Legal Aid, and Deputy Prosecutor General Karin Esterhuizen appears for the State. He remains in custody.