20 years for man who murdered lover
DOUGLASDALE - A Douglasdale police detective pulled out all the stops to get a man accused of murdering his lover convicted.
Detective Bongani Ngcobo recounted the details of the crime, which also involved prolonged domestic abuse between two lovers living in the Pipeline informal settlement in Kya Sands. On the night of 10 November 2012 the lovers had a fight and the man stabbed his girlfriend before fleeing the scene. The girlfriend died from her wound. Ngcoco said that the murder weapon was never found but there were eye-witnesses to the crime.
“Forensics also played a major part in the case and we applied for a section 205 from his cellphone provider in order to get access to his cellphone records,” he said. By tracking the man’s location through the use of his cellphone on the night of 10 November 2012, the police were able to establish that the murderer was lying about his alibi and was in the area at the time of the crime.
Ngcobo also used the three protection orders that the victim applied for against the suspect prior to the crime to establish motive.
“It was fortunate that the victim reported the domestic violence because this helped with the conviction,” he said.
While the man denied the crime right up until the day of conviction, the evidence was stacked against him.
On 24 April 2014 the man was convicted to 20 years imprisonment and deemed unfit to possess a firearm.
