‘Jones brothers visited home of alleged victim’

BROTHERS Ian and Chris Jones visited the house of the Windhoek businessman they are accused of robbing, kidnapping and murdering in February 2002 about two and a half months before his death, the High Court was told yesterday.

The brothers paid a visit to the Klein Windhoek house of the late Gero Schaum some time in late November 2001, Schaum’s wife, Katja Schaum, told Judge Sylvester Mainga when she testified in the trial of the brothers and two co-accused yesterday. Ian Jones (27) and his brother Chris, aged 29, are accused of having kidnapped Schaum from his home after they had broken into the house on February 14 2001.They allegedly forced Schaum into the boot of his car and drove with him to the Brakwater area north of Windhoek, the State is charging.There, Schaum was shot twice in the head and his body was left behind.It was discovered four days later.The brothers allegedly robbed some N$400 000 in cash from Schaum, it is also alleged.They pleaded not guilty to all five charges that they are facing, including counts of murder, kidnapping and housebreaking with the intention to rob and robbery with aggravating circumstances, when the trial started on Tuesday.Mrs Schaum identified the brothers yesterday as having been the two men who visited the Schaum house in late November 2001.She is working as a reflexologist and health therapist, and they arrived at the house claiming to be interested in buying one of the health products that she was selling from home at that stage, she told the court.Ian Jones did most of the talking, and she could remember that he had a twitch in his one eye which she diagnosed as an indication that he had a blockage in one of his organs, she related.He was acting strangely, and did not look her in the eyes while the duo were in the house, she said.The two did not look like people who wanted to buy things from her, she commented.Parts of Mrs Schaum’s testimony overlapped with that of the first two witnesses who testified in the trial.Both those witnesses also placed Ian Jones at Schaum house.According to the first witness, Ursula Kuhn, her daughter Simone had a three-week “friendship” with Ian Jones during October 2001.One weekend that month, her daughter, then in Grade 12 at school, was asked to look after Schaum’s house while he and his family went to Cape Town for the weekend, she related.When she went to take her daughter lunch one day over that weekend, she saw Jones was also at the house, she said.According to the second witness, JJ Prinsloo, he and Jones were neighbours when they stayed at the NG Church Youth Hostel in late 2001.He told the court that there was an occasion when he visited a house – he found out it had been Schaum’s home after Schaum had been killed – where he found both Simone and Jones present.They showed the house to him, and his impression was that the people living there must have been wealthy, he said.Jones’s defence lawyer, Ivo dos Santos, did not challenge this testimony when he had his chance to cross-examine Kuhn and Prinsloo.Mrs Schaum, however, gave a different date for the weekend when the family visited Cape Town and Simone was asked to look after their house.That had been over the first weekend of November 2001, she said.Upon their return, she added, she noticed that someone appeared to have gone through her cupboards and through the things, such as books, CDs, a computer and videos, in virtually every room of the house.She also noticed that a video camera, her husband’s Leatherman tool and a few CDs were missing.When she phoned Simone and asked if she knew anything about it, the girl told her that she had been alone at the house, studying, over the weekend, and if something had gone missing, she had not been responsible, Mrs Schaum said.She identified a large array of items in court as having belonged to her husband.This included a 7,65 mm Mauser pistol.This pistol, a former Police Constable, Titus Noariseb, also told the Judge yesterday, was found when Chris Jones was arrested in Windhoek on February 21 2002.Noariseb related that on that day he was in the back of a Police bakkie driving along Hosea Kutako Drive when he spotted someone in a patch of veld next to the road showing a pistol to two other people.He alerted his colleagues and they stopped.The trio started walking away, and he then saw Chris Jones removing the firearm from under his shirt and throwing it into the yard of a house they were passing.Noariseb said he apprehended Chris Jones and arrested him after Jones had told him that the pistol belonged to his nephew, who he said was a member of the Police’s Protected Resources Unit, and that he did not have a licence to possess it.After he had been arrested, Jones changed his story, telling the Constable that he had bought the firearm from people at Shoprite in Katutura, Noariseb said.Noariseb’s sharp eyes may have given the Police one of their first major breaks in the investigation of Schaum’s death.Noariseb said the Serious Crime Unit was called to fetch Jones and the pistol, and he heard from one of the Unit’s members soon thereafter that they had established that the pistol had belonged to someone who had been murdered, and that the firearm could lead to a solution of that crime investigation.The trial continues today, with Mrs Schaum set to be cross-examined by Chris Jones’s defence lawyer, Jorge Neves.Ian Jones (27) and his brother Chris, aged 29, are accused of having kidnapped Schaum from his home after they had broken into the house on February 14 2001.They allegedly forced Schaum into the boot of his car and drove with him to the Brakwater area north of Windhoek, the State is charging.There, Schaum was shot twice in the head and his body was left behind.It was discovered four days later.The brothers allegedly robbed some N$400 000 in cash from Schaum, it is also alleged.They pleaded not guilty to all five charges that they are facing, including counts of murder, kidnapping and housebreaking with the intention to rob and robbery with aggravating circumstances, when the trial started on Tuesday.Mrs Schaum identified the brothers yesterday as having been the two men who visited the Schaum house in late November 2001.She is working as a reflexologist and health therapist, and they arrived at the house claiming to be interested in buying one of the health products that she was selling from home at that stage, she told the court.Ian Jones did most of the talking, and she could remember that he had a twitch in his one eye which she diagnosed as an indication that he had a blockage in one of his organs, she related.He was acting strangely, and did not look her in the eyes while the duo were in the house, she said.The two did not look like people who wanted to buy things from her, she commented.Parts of Mrs Schaum’s testimony overlapped with that of the first two witnesses who testified in the trial.Both those witnesses also placed Ian Jones at Schaum house.According to the first witness, Ursula Kuhn, her daughter Simone had a three-week “friendship” with Ian Jones during October 2001.One weekend that month, her daughter, then in Grade 12 at school, was asked to look after Schaum’s house while he and his family went to Cape Town for the weekend, she related.When she went to take her daughter lunch one day over that weekend, she saw Jones was also at the house, she said.According to the second witness, JJ Prinsloo, he and Jones were neighbours when they stayed at the NG Church Youth Hostel in late 2001.He told the court that there was an occasion when he visited a house – he found out it had been Schaum’s home after Schaum had been killed – where he found both Simone and Jones present.They showed the house to him, and his impression was that the people living there must have been wealthy, he said.Jones’s defence lawyer, Ivo dos Santos, did not challenge this testimony when he had his chance to cross-examine Kuhn and Prinsloo.Mrs Schaum, however, gave a different date for the weekend when the family visited Cape Town and Simone was asked to look after their house.That had been over the first weekend of November 2001
, she said.Upon their return, she added, she noticed that someone appeared to have gone through her cupboards and through the things, such as books, CDs, a computer and videos, in virtually every room of the house.She also noticed that a video camera, her husband’s Leatherman tool and a few CDs were missing.When she phoned Simone and asked if she knew anything about it, the girl told her that she had been alone at the house, studying, over the weekend, and if something had gone missing, she had not been responsible, Mrs Schaum said.She identified a large array of items in court as having belonged to her husband.This included a 7,65 mm Mauser pistol.This pistol, a former Police Constable, Titus Noariseb, also told the Judge yesterday, was found when Chris Jones was arrested in Windhoek on February 21 2002.Noariseb related that on that day he was in the back of a Police bakkie driving along Hosea Kutako Drive when he spotted someone in a patch of veld next to the road showing a pistol to two other people.He alerted his colleagues and they stopped.The trio started walking away, and he then saw Chris Jones removing the firearm from under his shirt and throwing it into the yard of a house they were passing.Noariseb said he apprehended Chris Jones and arrested him after Jones had told him that the pistol belonged to his nephew, who he said was a member of the Police’s Protected Resources Unit, and that he did not have a licence to possess it.After he had been arrested, Jones changed his story, telling the Constable that he had bought the firearm from people at Shoprite in Katutura, Noariseb said.Noariseb’s sharp eyes may have given the Police one of their first major breaks in the investigation of Schaum’s death.Noariseb said the Serious Crime Unit was called to fetch Jones and the pistol, and he heard from one of the Unit’s members soon thereafter that they had established that the pistol had belonged to someone who had been murdered, and that the firearm could lead to a solution of that crime investigation.The trial continues today, with Mrs Schaum set to be cross-examined by Chris Jones’s defence lawyer, Jorge Neves.