A Rehoboth man admitted yesterday in the Windhoek High Court that he murdered his girlfriend of 17 years and mother of his two children by hitting her with the sharp end of a spade several times on her head.

Sacky Goliath (39) told Judge Naomi Shivute that he intended to murder Welfriede Saron (40) when he hit her several times with the spade on 2 June 2019.
He, however, pleaded not guilty on further charges of attempted murder, housebreaking with intent to murder and attempted murder, assault by threat and assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm.

It is alleged by the State that Goliath in addition to murdering Saron also assaulted the victim’s mother Barbara Campbell by hitting her in the face with the same spade.
According to the charge sheet, he hit the mother when she tried to stop him from hitting the deceased and she sustained an open wound in the face.

It is further alleged that he broke into the house of the victim’s new boyfriend Llewelyn Afrikaner with the intent to murder the deceased and that he attempted to murder her by stabbing her in the face with a knife a day prior to the murder.
He is further accused of threatening to assault the deceased by chasing her 
wielding a stick and stones threatening to attack her and that he hit Elaria Abisay who came to the aid of the deceased on her hand with a stick with the intention to cause her serious harm.

According to the summary of substantial facts in the indictment, the accused and deceased lived together in the nature of a marriage and have two children together and that during the night of 31 May 2019 or the early morning hours of 1 June 2019, the accused – armed with a knife – kicked open the door of the new boyfriend of the deceased’s house and stabbed her in the face.
The next day, it is alleged the deceased attempted to remove some of her belongings from the house of the accused, but the accused threatened to assault her by throwing stones at her and chasing her with a stick. When Abisay came to the assistance of the deceased, Goliath hit her on her hand with the stick, the indictment reads.

It further states that on the Sunday, the deceased and her mother attended a church service and whilst on their way back home after the service, the accused attacked them both with an iron spade by hitting the mother once in the face and the deceased multiple times on the head causing her to die from the injuries sustained during the attack.

In a plea explanation on the murder charge, Goliath told the court he arrived in Rehoboth a few days prior to the incident from a farm where he was employed for some time and his eldest daughter told him the deceased hardly spend any night at home during his absence. He further said that he also heard rumours of the deceased’s involvement with Afrikaner. He went on to say that the evening before the incident, the deceased had slept out and he went out looking for her to find out from her whether she had ended their relationship and why she did not tell him she already moved on with another man while he was at the farm.
He went on to say that on the day of the incident, he went looking for the deceased again whilst armed with a garden spade with the intention to hit her with the spade until she die.

“I found her in the street where Touch-Screen Bar is and I approached her and wielded the spade targeting her face and head and hit her several times until she passed out there and then she died instantly,” he said.
The matter is continuing today, and Goliath remains in custody at the Windhoek Correctional facility’s section for trial awaiting inmates.
He is represented by Mese Tjituri on instructions of Legal Aid and the State by Joseph Andreas. -rrouth@nepc.com.na