Durban — The Durban High Court has learned that a Pinetown woman charged with the kidnapping and murder of her husband, did not tell police about one of her neighbour’s CCTV cameras which face the gate of the couple’s home.
“I didn't tell him (the police officer), because it never crossed my mind that I ought to have mentioned it to him but neither did he ask anything about the cameras, he was only asking me what happened,” Nomphumelelo Patricia Goncalves said on Tuesday under cross-examination.
She is on trial along with her brother Nkosinathi Steve Zungu for the murder of Transnet engineer Nkosi Timmy Langa.
They are facing charges of kidnapping, murder, and robbery with aggravated circumstances. Goncalves also faces two counts of defeating the course of justice.
The nurse is alleged to have hired Zungu along with James Mashudu “Ramaphosa” Mthimkhulu who turned state witness, and is already serving time for his part in the crime.
On 29 September 2020, Langa was allegedly forced into his Isuzu X-Rider at his home near Hampshire Place in Pinetown and taken to a forest in Ozwathini by Zungu and Mthimkhulu.
Goncalves subsequently registered two false cases with the police, one of a missing person and the other for a stolen vehicle.
Mthimkhulu’s evidence was that Langa was killed with an electric cord cut from an iron in his home. It was put around his neck and Zungu pulled one end while Mthimkhulu pulled the other.
Langa’s body was left in the forest and was found sometime in November following a pointing-out by Mthimkhulu after police investigations had led to the recovery of Langa’s car.
Goncalves has denied plotting and executing a plan to kill Langa. She claims that when he left on the night of his disappearance he had done so of his own will, and had not told her where he was going.
In court, Senior State Advocate Krishen Shah asked Goncalves whether she had told police about her neighbour’s cameras and if she knew whether they were working or not.
“Those cameras work I say this because I was close to my neighbour and when I’d go there I’d see the monitors,” said the nurse.
Shah suggested that the woman was lying adding that if the cameras were working she would have surely told the police so it could be ascertained how Langa had left the house.
“The prosecutor is mistaken by saying that because as police who came more than once to my home during their investigation, they could have gone to the neighbour to ask for footage as police officers doing their job,” said Goncalves.
The trial continues.
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