Kimberley – Seeing his aspirations of having a family of his own marred by infidelity was a major contributing factor in John Mamogale’s decision to kill his wife.
This is according to the Head of Psychiatry for the Northern Cape Department of Health, Dr Keith Kirimi, who continued his testimony in the murder trial in the Northern Cape High Court on Tuesday.
Mamogale is charged with the murder of his 27-year-old wife, Shelley, after the former member of the SANDF shot her with an R4 assault rifle in a Kimberley guest house in 2012.
During Tuesday’s proceedings, State prosecutor, Advocate Theunis Barnard, said that he did not doubt that the suspicions of infidelity weighed heavily on the mind of the accused, but he argued that this was hardly a unique situation as marital problems were a common occurrence.
“There are many people with marital issues who also value their family and don’t go around shooting their wives,” Barnard told the court.
However, while Kirimi conceded this remark, he emphasised that Mamogale’s actions were not a normal response under the circumstances.
“My opinion is, that as he grew up family was a big thing,” said Kirimi.
“As an adult, he aimed to put together a family of his own and he worked very hard to achieve that. However, once he thought he had achieved this, things started falling apart. It broke him and he fell apart."
“In 2010/11 he ended up with mental health issues. There were interventions and their success was based on the belief that his family would still be there."
“What we saw, with his personal history and the trauma caused when the issues of infidelity came up, was the re-emergence of those panic and anxiety attacks, a depressive mood, characterised by a lack of desire for life, and suicidal ideas, culminating in the fatal shooting. At that point he lost all cognitive abilities.”
Kirimi acknowledged that Mamogale’s actions before, during and after the incident were crucial in gauging his accountability for the crime, but Barnard questioned whether the fact that the accused had phoned a friend after the fatal shooting was not an act indicative of a sane person, who was aware of their actions.
In response, Kirimi said this was not necessarily the case.
“In this regard, it is generally accepted that after the event, the perpetrator begins to regret what has happened,” Kirimi explained.
“Normally they don’t run away from the scene. Sometimes they try to assist the victim and they commonly call either the police or an acquaintance.”
The psychiatrist said that the accused had acted in a state of automatism, which could last as little as a few seconds, depending on the causes of the episode.
Kirimi did concede that he had not been able to review all the transcripts of the case as many key statements first needed to be translated.
“The process was impeded because some of the statements were taken in Afrikaans. I was unable to properly look at the time estimates of what happened and when,” he said.
The prosecution also pointed out that witnesses on the scene believed that Mamogale knew what he was doing.
Kirimi said that while the accused may well have been able to appreciate the difference between right and wrong, he had not been in a state of mind to act accordingly.
“Essentially, at some point, Mamogale started losing control and as events unfolded, he had lost control completely."
“He would have realised what he was doing and would have been able to distinguish between right and wrong but would not be able to control his actions.”
Barnard further pointed out that Mamogale had been evaluated by four experts who had reached different conclusions to those of Kirimi, regarding the accountability of the accused, but Kirimi said that he was not able to comment on the processes used by other medical professionals when determining a psychological condition.
“I’m not sure how much time they spent with him or how he was evaluated. I’m also not sure how many accounts they had of Mamogale’s behaviour."
“It was my own evaluation that brought me to my conclusion. It’s not a question of who they (medical experts) are. It is a question of my clinical impression.”