The Durban High Court is expected to hand down its judgment in the decapitation case in which Thabo Ntokozo Theodore Nzimande allegedly killed his grandmother.

Highway Mail reports that Nzimande will hear his fate on Wednesday (July 15), after his grandmother, Beata Beatrice de Lange, was murdered on June 7, 2024.

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

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

Claims of voices

The court has previously heard testimony from the investigating officer, 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 voices had told him he knew what to do.

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 heard testimony of an argument between Nzimande and his grandmother in the week of the murder.

The court has 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 a 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 had 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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