WINDHOEK – The Windhoek Regional Court released on bail a woman who was in police custody on allegations that she stabbed her live-in boyfriend to death in 2009.
Nearly a decade of being in police custody, Laimi Goagoses, 35, was granted bail in the amount of N$2 000 last week by Magistrate Elina Nandago. The court did not attach any conditions as part of Goagoses’ release from custody.
Goagoses is currently on trial for the death of her then boyfriend, Horst Gunther Radecke, 57. Radecke died as a result of multiple stab wounds on December 23, 2009 in Tempel Street, Dolam in Katutura.
It transpired during trial that the couple was apparently out all day drinking and got home in the evening. Upon their arrival at home, an argument erupted which led to a fight during which the deceased allegedly started assaulting Goagoses. She ran to the kitchen and grabbed a steak knife, storming back to the bedroom where she stabbed him.
According to the police, four bloodstained steak knives were found at the scene. One knife lay in a bedroom, where the presence of blood indicated the stabbing could have started, a second knife of which the blade had been bent, another knife of which the blade had been broken off, and a fourth knife, still intact, were found outside the house where Radecke lay dead next to a car.
Goagoses was found with a fifth knife in her trouser pocket.
Police officers that arrived at the scene on the day of the incident allegedly found the accused Goagoses on top of the deceased holding a knife, at the same time shaking his lifeless body. In her defence, Goagoses said she was simply examining if the deceased was still alive.
It is alleged there was nobody at home, apart from the deceased and the accused during the incident.
At the start of the trial in March 2012, Goagoses took a no guilty plea to the charge of murder, saying she could not recall the events that led to her boyfriend’s death. Goagoses, who abandoned her own application to undergo psychiatric evaluation, said she could not recall what happened. She testified that she only recalls going to the bathroom when they got home and when the police were removing Radecke’s body.
In the middle of the trial, the court ordered Goagoses to undergo psychiatric evaluation as per request of her defence attorney Titus Mbaeva. According to state prosecutor Menecia Hinda, the psychiatric evaluation report will be ready on October 29.