Iuze Mukube
A 37-year-old woman was sentenced to an effective prison term of 23 years on a charge of murder last Friday.
The sentence stems from the death of her one-year-old baby, who was found buried in a shallow grave on Farm Bucholtzbrunn in 2023.
Windhoek High Court Judge Philanda Christiaan, while handing down the sentence to Vapeni Lucia Boois, stated that even though the accused’s diminished responsibility acted as a mitigating factor, it was outweighed by the aggravating circumstances. These aggravating circumstances, she said, were the brutality of the attack, the vulnerability of the victim, the breach of maternal duty and the deliberate concealment by burying the child and burning his clothes. The diminished responsibility arises from Boois’ psychiatric evaluation, which diagnosed her with borderline personality disorder compounded with depressive symptoms, which reduced her power of restraint at the time of the commission of the crime. Boois, who was a former police officer, faced the charges of murder, read with the provisions of the Combating of Domestic Violence Act, and a charge of obstructing or defeating the course of justice.
The charges were in connection with the death of the now convicted one-year-old boy, Amare Alejandro Jose Boois, on 10 November 2023, at Farm Bucholtzbrunn near Bethanie in the //Kharas region. In the judge’s judgement, it reads that evidence was established that Boois deliberately removed the child from the care of his paternal family, travelled to the nearby farm, where she inflicted multiple stab wounds to the infant’s neck and abdomen with the intention to kill him.
It was also established that she attempted to conceal the crime when she, after stabbing the small child, buried his body in a shallow grave, placed a Bible upon it and burned clothing and personal items.
“Eyewitness testimony, footprint tracking, forensic analysis, and her spontaneous admissions corroborated her guilt,” stated the judge. Christiaan expressed that “a mother, entrusted with the fragile life of her infant son, chose instead to extinguish it in an act of violence that shocked the conscience of this court and the community at large.”
The judge also expressed being sensitive to the accused acting with diminished responsibility as she had reduced restraint and self-control in the commission of the murder.
But, Christiaan said, even though that fact reduced the accused’s moral blameworthiness, she was satisfied that the accused acted with direct intent when she murdered her son.
The accused still had the capacity to appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions and to act in accordance with such appreciation, albert limited, stated the judge.
“This tragedy could have been prevented had the accused taken control of her life and timeously sought treatment for her condition,” she said. She added that “the fact that the mother, the very person entrusted with the child’s care, was the perpetrator, aggravates the seriousness of the offence. It demonstrates a profound breach of trust and calls for a sentence that unequivocally denounces the conduct.” Hence, she sentenced Boois to 23 years’ imprisonment for murder and two years for defeating the course of justice.
It was ordered that the sentence in count two will run concurrently with the murder charge, therefore, Boois will spend a period of 23 years in jail. Boois, during the trial, indicated that “her conduct was not premeditated but arose from overwhelming emotional strain and feelings of abandonment.”
She also emphasised that the absence of support during pregnancy and childbirth left her vulnerable and unable to cope with the responsibilities of motherhood, which culminated in the commission of the offence.
Boois represented herself and the State by Emma Mayavero.