A resident of Westerkim Location in Karasburg had the necessary intent to kill his girlfriend when he repeatedly beat her, threw her on the ground and strangled her, a Windhoek High Court judge found when she convicted him of murder.
Acting Judge Eileen Rakow convicted Rynardt Wylie Roelf (35) after hearing evidence that he was angry that the victim, 20-year-old Kathrina Aloyisa Alexander, disobeyed his instructions that she remains at home while he went to work.
According to the indictment, Roelf instructed the victim not to leave the residence they shared in Westerkim during the early morning hours of 22 January last year while he was at his place of employment.
When he returned home later that day and found out that the deceased had defied his instructions by going into town with a female friend, he got angry and murdered the deceased by beating and hitting her, strangling her and throwing her onto the ground, causing her to die on the scene due to head injuries.
Roelf denied guilt at the start of his trial near the end of June.
According to him, he merely slapped the deceased in retaliation after she slapped him first.
During his testimony in defence, Roelf said he had N$700 in his wallet the night before the incident, which he wanted to use for his vehicle’s licence disc, but when he woke up the next morning, N$350 was missing.
According to Judge Rakow, she accepted the evidence that the accused slapped the deceased several times, had his hands around her throat and the findings of the post-mortem report that he used so much force that the hyoid bone of the victim
fractured.
She further said she accepted that the attack must have come from behind, as the marking of the fingers found on the neck of the deceased was facing towards the front. “The court accepts that the amount of force used in the attack by the accused was not moderate as testified by him, but it exceeded moderation as is clear from the injuries suffered by the deceased,” the judge stated.
“The court further found that he attempted to strangle her with enough force to break the hyoid bone and leave markings on her neck and clearly, at some stage, foresaw that he could kill her and reconciled himself with that notion.” Roelf’s bail was cancelled upon his conviction and he remains in custody at the Windhoek Correctional Facility’s section for trial awaiting inmates until his next court appearance on 26 June.
He is represented by legal aid lawyer Quinton Haoseb and the State by Tangeni Itula.
– rrouth@nepc.com.na