WINDHOEK – Lukas Nepela Nikodemus, 48, confessed to the Namibian Police Force that he shot one of the two deceased he is accused of murdering after she initially shot the other victim,
Windhoek High Court Judge Christi Liebenberg was told on Wednesday morning.
This came to light when two officers present at his arrest testified in court.
Chief Inspector Vilho Amoomo who was the lead investigator into the murders and Warrant-Officer Ivanoi Vatolifa both told the judge that Nikodemus told them the two ladies, one his girlfriend and the other his side chick, were with him on that fateful day when an argument broke out between them.
He then loaded them both into his car and drove in the direction of Khomasdal, the officers narrated what Nikodemus had told them.
They said Nikodemus further told them that while he was driving, the lady seated in the back seat grabbed his loaded pistol that he put between the driver’s seat and the front passenger’s seat and played around with it aiming it at the lady in the front seat.
According to the police officers, the accused said suddenly a shot went off and he saw that the lady in the front seat was bleeding from her chest whereafter he managed to wrest the firearm from the woman in the backseat and shot her through the chest. On Tuesday the chief forensic scientist at the Namibia Forensic Scientific Institute, Maryn Swart, testified that blood found in the car of Nikodemus matched that of the two women.
Nikodemus is accused of murdering 29-year-old Johanie Naruses and 23-year-old Clementia de Wee by shooting them with his pistol whereafter he burned their bodies at a dumpsite near Pionierspark in Windhoek.
He faces two counts of murder, one count of defeating or obstructing or attempting to defeat or obstruct the course of justice and one count of failing to lock away a firearm.
He pleaded not guilty to all counts at the start of his trial in September last year, but did not provide a plea explanation and put the onus on the state to prove all the allegations against him.
Swart testified she tested the samples collected by the police against samples taken from the two deceased and that they were a perfect match to the two deceased.
A ballistic expert also testified last year that a projectile found in a seat of the black Golf of Nikodemus matched the gun found underneath his mattress in his room.
The state alleges that Nikodemus, 48, killed Naruses and De Wee during the period January 6 – 7, 2016 and set their dead bodies alight.
Their partly burned bodies were found by a security guard the morning of January 7, 2016 and Nikodemus was arrested the same day after a SIM card that linked him to the crime was found in the back pocket of the jeans of one of the deceased.
During his first appearance in the magistrate’s court, Nikodemus told the magistrate he did not know how to plead as he had no recollection of what had happened.
The case continues today and Nikodemus will remain in custody at the Windhoek Correctional Services facility for trial- awaiting inmates after Acting High Court Judge Petrus Unengu refused him bail two days before the trial started.
He is being defended by Mbanga Siyomunji, while State Advocate Cliff Lutibezi is prosecuting.