The daughter of an elderly Kabega Park woman who was strangled during a house robbery says she feels extreme guilt over her mother’s murder.
Susanne Settle told the Port Elizabeth High Court on Wednesday she felt guilty after asking her domestic worker to find someone to assist in cleaning her mother’s granny flat.
“I feel guilty because I asked [the domestic worker] to find someone to help and if I didn’t ask for assistance then my mother would still be alive today,” Settle said.
She also said she no longer trusted people.It is alleged the four accused – Sinethemba Nenembe, 28, Mkhuseli Ngqanda, 29, Thanduxolo Vumazonke, 23, and Fikile Mengo, 20 – robbed and murdered Denise Webber, 78, at her Needham Road home on August 20 2015.
Three of the accused allegedly gained entry to the property with the help of Mengo, who was recruited by the domestic worker, Nolukhanyo Florence Mafuduka.
The state alleges Nenembe, Ngqanda and Vumazonke arrived at Webber’s home during the day and met Mengo before they tied up Webber and Mafuduka with cable ties.
Webber was strangled while she was tied up.
It is alleged the four ransacked the house, loaded stolen items into a vehicle they had arrived in, and fled the scene.
Atlas Security armed response officer Armond Kruger was the first person on the scene after a panic alarm was pressed by a neighbour who heard Mafuduka screaming for help.
Kruger told the court when he arrived at the house he had used a stepladder to climb over the wall of the property.
Once inside the yard, he found Mafuduka with her hands tied in front of her.
He said when he entered the flatlet on the property, he saw Webber lying face down on the floor.
Her hands were tied behind her back and a towel was tied around her head.
Kruger said an NSA security company officer had also arrived on the scene, and after he cut the cable ties off Mafuduka’s wrists he had attended to Webber, but told him [Kruger] she was dead.
“The moment the NSA officer removed the towel, he told me the granny was dead,” Kruger said.
The court heard that Mafuduka had been seven months’ pregnant at the time of the attack.
Nenembe is already serving a prison sentence after being found guilty of the murder of Uitenhage schoolteacher Jayde Panayiotou.
His co-accused, Vumazonke, is the cousin of the co-accused in the Panayiotou case, Sizwezakhe Vumazonke, 30, who died in prison while awaiting trial.
All four of the accused have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances.
The case continues.