THE Durban High Court on Thursday (July 16) found Thabo Ntokozo Theodore Nzimande guilty of the 2024 murder of his grandmother in Pinetown.

Handing down judgment, Acting Judge Mpumelelo Sibisi said Nzimande’s defence was not reasonably or possibly true and therefore rejected it.

The judge also said there was no indication that Nzimande lacked criminal capacity, and had acted voluntarily.

Sibisi said Nzimande’s denial that he does not know what had transpired at the granny flat he shared with his grandmother and what had happened to the deceased “is a lie”.

The judge said the evidence presented in the case pointed to Nzimande’s guilt.

Sibisi added that Nzimande had shown a “selective amnesia” when responding to some “crucial questions”.

Nzimande  killed his grandmother Beata Beatrice de Lange on June 7, 2024.

Nzimande had pleaded not guilty to the murder of his 80-year-old grandmother.

In his not guilty plea, he stated that on the night he had smoked cannabis and overdosed on prescription pills before passing out and was not aware of what had happened to the deceased.

The court has previously heard testimony from the investigating officer (IO), Detective Sergeant Noelin Chetty of the Pinetown SAPS, that Nzimande had “stated that the voices told him ‘you know what to do’, then he kept quiet”.

Chetty told the court that Nzimande said this in the back of a police vehicle en route to Fort Napier Hospital in 2024, where, as per a court order, he was to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

Through his legal representative, Nzimande previously agreed he had said the voices had told him he knew what to do.

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The court also heard testimony from Nzimande’s uncle, John Ngcobo, that a once good relationship between the accused and the deceased had soured towards the end.

The court also heard testimony of an argument between Nzimande and his grandmother in the week leading up to the murder.

The court heard from Ngcobo that Nzimande, on the night of the murder, had allegedly waved De Lange’s head in front of his uncle through a closed glass sliding door, and had allegedly said that he “had to do it”.

Past testimony before the court also came from State witness, Constable Nobuhle Stephanie Chili – who was one of two SAPS officers who were first at the scene of the murder, a granny flat in the Pinetown property of Ngcobo.

Chili testified that the accused had shouted that “the ancestors had told him to kill his grandmother, that they had said he had to kill one of his family members that he loved so that he could be saved”.

In past proceedings, however, Nzimande, through his legal representative, has disputed testimony that he had relayed that he was “instructed” by his ancestors to commit the murder.

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