Johannesburg - The case against a man accused of killing his wife was postponed by the Roodepoort Magistrate's Court on Thursday.
Mario Allers, 42, who was out on parole for killing three other people with an axe in 1999, made a brief appearance shortly after 11am.
Dressed in a grey jacket, black jeans, and still wearing his wedding ring, he looked directly at Magistrate Delize Smith as he stood in the dock.
The matter was postponed to August 22 for further investigation. This was unopposed by prosecutor Sammy Campher and defence lawyer Jacob Mamabolo.
The State requested that Allers be placed on suicide watch due to reported suicidal tendencies.
Allers spoke softly in Afrikaans when asked about his language preferences. He briefly paused and glanced around the courtroom as he left the dock.
Court proceedings were delayed earlier on Thursday morning as Allers failed to respond to his name when he was called into the dock.
He allegedly killed his wife Carol, 51, at their house in Randparkridge, Randburg, last Wednesday. According to a Beeld report, she was stabbed three times in the back and once in the arm.
Allers appeared in the Roodepoort Magistrate's Court on Friday and applied for legal aid.
In 1999, Allers, then 27, was arrested for the murder of his mother, grandmother, and best friend.
He killed them with an axe at the family home on the Bluff, north of Durban.
Despite the findings of the district surgeon that Allers was mentally unstable and unfit to stand trial, and that he suffered from drug-induced schizophrenia, he was convicted.
Sapa