Suspect admits deadly axe attack

THE man accused of murdering Walvis Bay resident Gerda van Heerden in a gruesome axe attack at her home two years ago admitted killing her when his trial started in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday – but denied that he intended taking her life when he struck her repeatedly on the head with an axe.

‘I plead guilty,’ Wilbard Uushona Mbavu (29) told Judge Sylvester Mainga in a barely audible voice when he was asked to give his plea.Mbavu is accused of murdering Van Heerden (44) at Walvis Bay on March 13 2007.’Guilty,’ was again his barely audible response when he was asked to plead to a charge of robbery with aggravating circumstances. In that charge, Mbavu is accused of robbing Van Heerden when, after he hit her with an axe, he allegedly stole a pink Motorola cellphone, at least N$400 in cash, a .38 Smith & Wesson revolver and four bullets from her.Deputy Prosecutor General Antonia Verhoef, telling Judge Mainga that Mbavu was not admitting all the elements of the two charges in a plea explanation that his lawyer, Duard Kesslau, gave to the court, told the Judge that the State did not accept Mbavu’s pleas.As a result, the Judge noted a plea of not guilty on both counts.In a written plea explanation signed by Mbavu, he admitted that he was responsible for ending Van Heerden’s life.’I killed her by hitting her four times with an axe on her head,’ he stated. ‘She died as a result of the injuries sustained during the attack. I had no right to kill another human. I had no intention to kill the deceased at the time but realise now that I could cause the death of a person by beating them with an axe.’Mbavu was arrested at his home in Walvis Bay’s Kuisebmond area two days after Van Heerden had been killed, Constable Higinus Stefanus, one of the Police officers who investigated the case, told Judge Mainga yesterday. He related that Mbavu was found after Van Heerden’s cellphone, which Mbavu was using with a new SIM card at the time of his arrest, had been successfully traced by the Police.A day after his arrest, Mbavu gave a confession to a Magistrate at Walvis Bay. The confession also became part of the evidence in the trial yesterday.In the confession, Mbavu related that Van Heerden, with whom he had worked previously, let him into her house on the day of the incident.He related that he and Van Heerden were supposed to start working for their own firm, but when he asked her when they would be starting, she told him there was no work. After he had asked her for some money and she had given him N$100, she told him, ‘It’s OK now,’ and started opening a garage door.’That is where I took the axe that was near by me,’ Mbavu stated.He told the Magistrate: ‘I lift the axe towards her. Pointed it towards her. I then forced her inside the house with the axe. I forced her up to the living room. She went to stand against the wall. I then hit her on the head with the handle of the axe. I hit her once. She fell on the floor. I hit her again three times with the handle on the head. I then took a cushion from the couch and put it on her face.’According to Walvis Bay medical doctor Esteban Blazic, who performed an autopsy on Van Heerden’s body, she had suffered three heavy blows to her head and another to the upper left side of her chest. Dr Blazic said in his opinion Van Heerden had been struck by the blade of the axe that Mbavu admitted having used in the attack.The blows to her head were so forceful that not only the top of her skull was fractured, but she also sustained two severe fractures to the base of her skull, he said. The blow to her chest fractured her sternum – an injury so severe that one often does not even encounter it in the victims of fatal car crashes, the doctor said. Dr Blazic described the injuries to Van Heerden’s head as ‘deadly, deadly injuries’. On a scale from one to 10, with 10 being if a person used all his power, the force that was used to inflict the blows was close to 10, Dr Blazic said.Injuries on Van Heerden’s neck and internal bleeding in the tissues of her neck also indicated that she had been throttled with ‘remarkable force,’ Dr Blazic further testified.Verhoef has indicated that the prosecution could be closing its case against Mbavu this morning already.Despite the seriousness of the charges and a guilty plea he also gave in the Walvis Bay Magistrate’s Court on March 16 2007, Mbavu was granted bail of N$3 000 on August 18. He remains free on bail.