The daughter of 80-year-old Beatrice de Lange, who was allegedly stabbed many times before being beheaded by her grandson in Pinetown, told the Durban high court she wished she could have foreseen the events which led to her mother’s death.
Ziningi Myaka, who lives in Greytown, was testifying in the trial of Thabo Nzimande, 32, who is charged with the June 7 2024 murder.
She recalled how she and her sister, a nurse from Pietermaritzburg who she didn’t name, visited Nzimande at the Pinetown police cells a day after their mother’s death to find out what prompted his alleged actions.
“We asked him why he did this. He shouted, ‘I had to do it,’” said Myaka.
She said Nzimande’s response infuriated her sister. Nzimande was arrested with bloodstained clothes a day after the murder at a flat he shared with his grandmother in the family home owned by an aunt and uncle in Maurice Nichols Road in Pinetown.
He went to live with his grandmother after his mother died when he was six.
Jaishela Kooverjee from Jullo rehab centre previously told the court Nzimande had started smoking dagga and tobacco from the age of 13 and had been admitted to a drug rehabilitation centre from January 8 to 31 2024.
Myaka said seeing her nephew in jail was her last encounter with him.
She said her mother attended all the sessions at the centre except for one on May 25. On the day she had found her mother upset about her grandson’s actions. Myaka said she drove from her Greytown home to Pinetown to find a livid De Lange. She said De Lange and Nzimande had fought over an inconclusive drug test. De Lange, she said, suspected her grandson had relapsed.
“My mother wanted to look after him all the time because she was not working. She also felt it would not have been easy for me to look after my nephew because I was not there 24/7,” said Myaka.
She said De Lange had told her how Nzimande had been angered when confronted about the results. He confronted her, moving close to her face and yelling “you crazy old b***h”.
Myaka later drove Nzimande to the rehabiliation centre for a counselling session and confronted him about the incident. She said he refuted his grandmother’s claim about calling her a crazy woman.
“I was not happy about that. But I had given Nzimande the benefit of the doubt without thinking it could be my mother’s cry for help,” she said.
She described her nephew as someone who did not like to be reprimanded when at fault.
Myaka said after the session she dropped Nzimande at a factory in New Germany where he was employed and told him he should come to Greytown the next week.
“I wanted to give my mother a break. I also had errands for him, which would include painting at the house. When he was with me, my sister phoned to speak to him about the alleged incident with granny,” said Myaka.
She said Nzimande disconnected the call.
Under cross-examination, Legal Aid attorney Emmanuel Chiliza asked Myaka why she had submitted a second statement to police about the May incident in September.
“When you have such a tragic incident you only realise some of the things at a later stage when you try to make sense of the events. Sometimes you go back and look at the calendar and connect the events. I sometimes ask myself how I failed my mother,” said Myaka.
She said she was surprised to hear Nzimande felt he was unsupported and unloved, leading to his addiction, because after losing her husband in 2023 she had included Nzimande in her will as she did not have a child of her own.
She also told the court she bought him clothes and paid his school fees. The family raised R70,000 among themselves for his studies but he had not attended some classes.
“I wanted him to have a great future. He told me there was a girl he liked and I volunteered to pay lobola if he wanted a future with her.”
Myaka said she had never known her nephew to suffer from hallucinations, memory loss or hearing the voices of his ancestors. She said he had not been treated for psychosis.
The trial continues on Friday.
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