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No one really saw the accused enter the deceased's premises
and no one saw him leave, but he was seen as he ran towards his home
from the direction of the main high road. That he went home and changed
his clothes the accused admits because it was only when he was accosted
by his sister and he saw his finger bleeding that the realisation of what
had just taken place came back to him, whereupon he soon appreciated that
he was in trouble and made immediate tracks for the airport.
What took place at the deceased's premises can again unfortunately
only be told by the accused which he did when he made a clean breast of
everything in his statement to the police, so we have no real reason to
doubt its veracity. After all he has provided nearly all the fundamental
facts of the case for our scrutiny and basically they have been true,
His account is that he went to the shop and met the deceased in the grocery,
called for a stout collected it and paid a dollar; that the deceased again
accosted him about her money, that he again denied but that when she
persisted in the accusation, it just happened; that later when he caught
himself and reflected, the details came back to him as follows
that he tied her around the mouth with the string, that she exclaimed
'wait wait what are you doing', that he struck her two blows with the
knife, left the knife on the table, left the stout on the table, began
looking in the cabinet for the dollar he had paid and then left through
the same door he had entered.
This account opens the door to quite a few questions. Why leave
the knife at the scene seeing that it could be easily identified? Why
rummage for his dollar when it should have been in the deceased's hands?
re/twel:
Why strike twelve blows with the knife when the first to the temple was
sufficient? Why only recollect two blows when there were twelve? It
was the contention of the Defence that the real answer to these questions
is that the accused had lost his reason, was either blank or berserk, and
at the time did not know what he was doing. There were four limbs to the
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