The double murder trial of a 47-year-old Pinetown bakery delivery driver continues in the Durban High Court today (November 13).

According to Highway Mail, the accused, Phiwinhlanhla Nzama, who has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder, took the witness stand yesterday (November 12) and testified in support of his pleas.

Nzama has pleaded guilty to a third count of failing to lock a firearm in a prescribed safe. He is accused of murdering a woman and her boyfriend — the father of her child — on April 14, 2024, at rental cottages in Nazareth, Pinetown.

The investigating officer, Pinetown SAPS detective Sergeant Noelin Chetty, testified that the mother was shot at point-blank range, allegedly by Nzama.

“The child was found still suckling on her mother, and the child was covered in blood,” said Chetty who testified that there is enough evidence to support the state’s case against the accused.

Yesterday, the child’s grandmothers — the maternal grandmother and the paternal grandmother — attended the trial. The maternal grandmother said at the time of her daughter’s murder, her grandchild, who lives with her now, was almost two years old.

“The murderer has no conscience. What are we going to tell this child as she grows up?” she lamented, adding that after the incident, her grandchild used to have trouble sleeping but appears to be OK now.

She said as an elderly woman living with health complications, raising her grandchildren comes with challenges, and that the death of her daughter has inflicted ‘a severe wound that will not heal’.

The paternal grandmother said the murder of her son caused her deep trauma.

Today, the state, led by Advocate Rakesh Singh, is due to continue cross-examining Nzama who is defended by Advocate Patrick Mkumbuzi.

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