A one-year-old baby allegedly murdered by his mother in the ||Kharas region in January 2023 was stabbed 15 times, a medical doctor testified in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.
A doctor who carried out a post-mortem examination on the body of Amaré Boois (1) recorded that there were eight stab wounds on the right side of the boy’s neck, Dr Mamadi Guriras, who is employed at the State Mortuary in Windhoek, testified before judge Philanda Christiaan.
Guriras said the doctor also recorded seven stab wounds to Amaré’s right abdominal flank and back.
Two of the stab wounds to the boy’s neck perforated his right jugular vein, and one of the stab wounds to his abdomen penetrated his liver, Guriras said.
The wounds were caused by a sharp, pointed object, she added.
Guriras testified in the trial of Amaré’s mother, Lucia Boois (37), who is charged with counts of murder, read with the provisions of the Combating of Domestic Violence Act, and defeating or obstructing the course of justice.
The state is alleging that Boois murdered her son by stabbing him with a knife or other sharp object at a farm in the Bethanie area in the ||Kharas region on 12 January 2023.
Boois is also accused of burying Amaré’s body and burning some belongings after he had been killed.
The state is alleging that Boois left the house of her mother at Swakopmund, where she was living with Amaré, with her son on 9 January 2023 and travelled to the Bethanie area, where the boy was killed and buried.
Boois is a former police officer.
She has chosen to stand trial without legal representation, and refused to plead to the charges at the start of her trial two months ago.
As a result of her stance, Christiaan recorded pleas of not guilty on both charges on her behalf.
In a statement that Boois wrote on 14 January 2023, after her arrest, she claimed her son’s father refused to send money to her during her pregnancy and refused to pay child maintenance after the boy’s birth. She recounted that when Amaré was nine months old, she took him to his father’s family.
When she collected the boy from his father’s family in December 2022, she was not happy about the condition in which she found him, and she reported the matter to a social worker, Boois stated.
She parted ways with her son’s paternal grandmother and aunt on an unpleasant note, Boois related in her statement.
She added: “I got tired of all these problems and decided to kill myself and my son.
At least he won’t suffer any more.
I even got robbed at Mariental of all my personal documents and that drove me insane.”
In a second statement written by Boois six days after the first statement, she said she felt hatred from her son’s father.
Boois also said she was unable to sustain herself and her son. “We were not at peace, had no financial stability and suffered extreme health problems.
But they failed to support me in a sincere manner,” she wrote.
Amaré, she also wrote, “will never suffer human pain again”. The trial is continuing.
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