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Jacobs found guilty of killing his wife

2018-02-19  Staff Report 2

Jacobs found guilty of killing his wife
Roland Routh Windhoek-The High Court has found Johannes Jacobs guilty of intentionally killing his wife, Sophia Lucia Jacobs, 41, by stabbing her 12 times with a knife in the chest and back at Blouwes Primary School and Hostel in the Keetmanshoop area, before fleeing the scene. She died the next day in the Keetmanshoop hospital due to her injuries. “In my view, all the injuries inflicted on the deceased were caused by the accused, he having been the only one who had accosted her in the schoolyard on the night of June 18, 2014,” High Court Judge Dinah Usiku said when she convicted Jacobs, 48, of murder with direct intent. Jacobs had pleaded not guilty to the charge and claimed his wife fell on the knife while they were struggling for it and that caused the fatal stab wounds. The two killing blows were one 110mm deep wound that penetrated the left ventricle of the heart and one wound that penetrated the upper left lung, which caused massive bleeding. According to the judge, while it had been Jacob’s contention throughout the trial that the deceased injured herself, his evidence was not too clear as to how the deceased inflicted the injuries on herself with the knife. She further said that Jacobs at the same time did not deny having stabbed the deceased in the back, although claiming those injuries could not have caused the death of his wife. “Two of the state witnesses testified that after hearing screams they went towards where the screams were coming from and found the deceased lying in a pool of blood as the accused walked away,” the judge said, adding: “In my view those cries by the deceased were as a result of the brutal attack on her by her husband, which the latter does not even deny.” She said that Jacobs admitted that he stabbed the deceased at least five times in her back because he was angry and that state witnesses who found the deceased lying in a pool of blood also heard the deceased calling out the accused’s name more than once, which evidence was not challenged. The judge added that evidence found by the doctor who conducted the post-mortem is that he found multiple injuries on different aspects of the body, including the two fatal wounds which, according to the doctor, are not consistent with self-inflicted injuries. Judge Usiku said the murder weapon was found at the house of Jacobs and not at the scene where the body of the deceased lay in a pool of blood, if it is indeed true that she inflicted the injuries on herself as claimed by Jacobs. She further said that evidence was adduced that the accused went to the place where the deceased resided after moving out of the common home because of the abuse she was subjected to by the accused, which goes to show that he was angry and was the one who confronted the deceased and not the other way round as he wants the court to believe. “The court is satisfied that it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused unlawfully caused the death of the deceased,” Judge Usiku said. She further found that Jacobs acted with the subjective intention to kill his wife when he stabbed her with extreme force in an exceptionally vulnerable part of the body. The bail of Jacobs was cancelled upon his conviction and he is remanded in custody at the Windhoek Correctional Facility’s section for trial-awaiting inmates until the finalization of his case. He is represented by Jan Wessels on instructions of legal aid and Hesekiel Ipinge is prosecuting.
2018-02-19  Staff Report 2

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