Windhoek
The sister of a man who was murdered by the lover of his estranged wife yesterday requested the court to send her brother’s killer to jail for a very long time.
Jolene Jansen said she could still not make peace with the manner in which her brother, Henry Thomas Julius, was killed during the morning of March 05, 2008.
“He was killed like an animal, like a common dog in the most gruesome manner,” the distraught woman said while suppressing tears that threatened to spill over onto her cheeks.
While she testified about the events that led up to her brother’s killing at the hands of Kevin Adams, at the time the live-in lover of her brother’s estranged wife – Jeanetta (Netta) Katrina Julius – Jansen kept shaking her head and looking over her shoulder at family sitting in the gallery.
Jansen testified how the marriage between Netta and the deceased became “stormy” after the deceased discovered that his firstborn was in fact not his biological daughter.
She said the deceased called the family together when the child, who is believed to be in her mid-twenties now, was four years old and told them he discovered the girl was not his child.
She further said her brother then made them promise to never again speak of it as he loved the child very much.
But, she said, that was the turning point in the marriage of Netta and the deceased.
The witness described to the court how Netta would buy furniture on hire purchase, just to turn around and sell the furniture, leaving the deceased to pay the bills.
She further said Netta went so far as to steal people’s cheques and that the deceased would stop people from reporting it to the police, promising to pay back the money.
She further said she never received any assistance – financial or moral – either from Netta or her family during the burial of the deceased and carried the costs of the burial on her own.
According to Jansen, even the fact that the deceased had a protection order against her did not stop Netta from attacking the deceased anywhere she met him and that she even went to his place of work to accost the deceased.
She said it got to the point where she had to be called to take her brother away as she was afraid that “one day he would get the upper hand and people would not know how he was physically and emotionally abused by Netta”.
The protection order her brother got was at her instigation, she said, after Netta arrived at the house he shared with Jansen “very drunk and started beating the deceased and swearing at him in the most vulgar manner, and twisted his private parts until he lost consciousness”.
Netta was earlier acquitted on the charge of murder after Judge Naomi Shivute found there was not enough evidence to convict her, but convicted her on the charge defeating or obstructing or attempting to defeat or obstruct the course of justice for washing blood off the clothes of Adams and hiding him from the police.
Adams, represented by Boris Isaacks, instructed by the Legal Aid Department, was convicted on the charge of murder, but acquitted on the second charge of defeating or obstructing or attempting to defeat or obstruct the course of justice.
In mitigation of sentence, he turned around and implicated Netta in the murder, claiming she planned the whole thing to get her hands on the deceased’s pension money.
The trial continues on November 30 when Jansen will be cross-examined by the defence counsel. Both accused are in custody.
Netta is represented by Mbanga Siyomunji also on instructions from legal aid and the State by State Advocate Shakwa Nyambe.