Drive-by truckers testify in teacher’s murder trial

A TRUCK driver testified in the High Court in Windhoek last week that he saw murder suspect David de Jay apparently assaulting a woman at the scene where De Jay is alleged to have murdered his wife in early 2009.

De Jay (60), who is a retired teacher, pleaded not guilty to a charge of murder at the beginning of last week. He is accused of murdering his wife, Catharina Cornelia (‘Tina’) de Jay (56), near Seeheim west of Keetmanshoop on February 13 2009.Mrs De Jay, who was an insurance agent at Keetmanshoop, was allegedly stabbed six times with a knife. There were no eyewitnesses who saw the killing.In a plea explanation given to Judge Alfred Siboleka on Monday, De Jay claimed he found his wife with a knife in her chest after he had seen two unknown men running from the scene where the couple had stopped at a lay-by near the Fish River. De Jay claimed he had been taking a stroll towards the bridge over the river when he looked back from a distance of about 100 metres and saw the two men running away.Truck driver Cornelius Jansen has now told the court he was driving slowly over the Fish River bridge and past the lay-by when he spotted De Jay and a woman sitting in the front seats of a sedan car parked next to the road.Jansen said he saw De Jay had something shiny in his hands, and that De Jay was striking the woman with that object.’My thoughts said at that time, look, this man is beating his wife in the veld,’ Jansen said.He testified that he then sounded his truck’s hooter, and that upon this, De Jay gave him a thumbs-up sign, as if to say everything was fine.Jansen said he continued on his journey to Keetmanshoop.During cross-examination De Jay’s defence lawyer, Boris Isaacks, told Jansen that De Jay is denying that he assaulted a woman in his car. Jansen’s reply was that if he had not seen the reflective object in De Jay’s hands he would not have turned to look at the car and would not have sounded the truck’s hooter, and De Jay would not have given him a thumbs-up sign in response either.Another trucker who passed by the scene, Elton John Christiaan, testified on Thursday that he stopped his truck across the road from the scene where he saw De Jay standing next to a car. De Jay greeted him three times with a raised hand as he walked around his truck to inspect his load, Christiaan said.When he got out of the truck, he said, he saw De Jay take a blanket from the boot of his car and throw it onto the ground next to the vehicle. He then saw that the blanket had been thrown over a person, with the lower parts of two legs still protruding from under the blanket.Christiaan said from the positioning of the legs it looked to him like the person was lying on his or her stomach.He was still walking around his truck when he also saw De Jay throwing a shiny object, looking like a sharp instrument, away from him, Christiaan claimed.As he started driving away from the scene, De Jay again greeted him, this time with a double thumbs-up wave of the hands, Christiaan related.According to Isaacks, though, De Jay will tell the court that he did not greet Christiaan as many times as the witness claimed, and that he did not throw a shiny object away from him.A Windhoek lawyer, Chris Gouws, testified on Friday that he found De Jay waving his arms frantically as he tried to get Gouws to stop at the scene.’They killed my wife, they killed my wife,’ De Jay said to him when he stopped, Gouws said.He said the impression he got was that De Jay was shocked and in distress, and that he was not just putting on a show.The trial is continuing.