Thabo Ntokozo Nzimande, who stabbed his 80-year-old grandmother, decapitated her, and kicked her severed head like a soccer ball on June 7, 2024, was convicted of murder by the Durban High Court on Thursday.
Acting Judge Mpumelelo Sibisi found that there was no evidence suggesting anyone else could have killed the elderly woman, Beatrice DeLange, in the granny flat they shared with Nzimande in Pinetown.
“The version of the accused denying knowledge of how the deceased was killed is a lie,” Judge Sibisi said.
The judge also rejected Nzimande’s defence that he was temporarily insane at the time of the murder: “He has selective amnesia as far as crucial questions are concerned.”
Nzimande had claimed he did not know what had happened to his grandmother on the night of the murder, as he had taken sleeping tablets, smoked marijuana, and then gone to sleep.
“His defence cannot reasonably possibly be true,” Sibisi ruled.
The judge accepted the evidence of Nzimande’s uncle, John Ngcobo, finding there was no reason to doubt his testimony that he saw Nzimande holding his mother-in-law’s severed head, swinging it from side to side, and kicking it like a soccer ball.
Ngcobo testified that after hearing noises coming from the granny flat, he and his wife, Delisile, DeLange’s daughter, went to investigate. When Nzimande failed to respond to their calls, Delisile returned to the main house while Ngcobo continued trying to get his attention.
Looking through a window, Ngcobo saw Nzimande covered in blood and carrying DeLange’s severed head. Nzimande instructed him to call the police.
Judge Sibisi found the evidence from the police officers who attended the scene credible.
“He committed the crime voluntarily; this is proved by his actions when he interacted with Ngcobo and the police,” the judge said.
The officers testified that Nzimande handed them the key to the flat through a window. Inside, they found DeLange’s severed head in the lounge, while her headless body lay in another room.
Nzimande’s cousin, Zwelethu Ngcobo, testified that while sitting in the back of a police van after his arrest, Nzimande shouted that “the whole of Pinetown was going to know who he was”.
Judge Sibisi found that the State, led by advocate Nadira Moosa, had presented sufficient credible evidence linking Nzimande to the murder. He further held that Nzimande’s claimed blackouts were unsupported by medical evidence.
“There is no corroboration of the accused’s version or defence. There is no proper foundation to conclude that the dagga and medication he took led to involuntary actions,” Sibisi said.
The case continues for the mitigation of sentence.
