Kimberley - The mother of Lerato Olifant, the woman who was brutally stabbed to death with an assegai in Kimberley last year, on Wednesday testified that she had often told the man charged with the murder that he would one day kill her daughter.
Shadrack Tshite Boikanyo, 44, is charged with the murder of his 27-year-old girlfriend who was stabbed in her chest with an assegai and died in a pool of blood in a stranger’s house on March 8 2015, a day celebrated as International Women’s Day.
The State alleges that Olifant was forced into a vehicle with Boikanyo after he pulled her from a house in Sechoareng Street at round 7am on the morning of the incident. However, she managed to jump out and run into another house in the street.
The accused followed her and was seen by witnesses carrying a sharp object. Witnesses also saw Boikanyo stabbing the deceased several times.
Olifant’s mother, Didimalo Olifant, on Wednesday concluded her testimony in the Northern Cape High Court, where she said that she had often told the accused that he would “one day kill her daughter”.
Olifant said that she was woken up on the morning of the incident by a neighbour, who saw Boikanyo minutes earlier knocking on her door and then climbing into his car, with his clothes covered in blood.
The neighbour also said that she had received a call from Boikanyo, who told her that he had stabbed Olifant.
“My neighbour told me, 'Wake up, Shadow (Boikanyo) says your child is lying in Sechoareng Street’. I wanted to leave in my pyjamas but my neighbour told me to rather get dressed, as she had seen that Boikanyo was covered in blood and thought that I might have to go to the hospital with Lerato,” Didimalo said.
“When we arrived in Sechoareng Street, we saw lots of people standing in the street and they pointed us towards the house. I went in with my neighbour and Lerato’s father, but did not enter the room where she was lying as there was too much blood.”
She further testified that Boikanyo and Olifant’s relationship was “troublesome” and that they fought almost every day.
“The accused was extremely jealous, to the extent that the men we stayed with could not go to our house, as he did not want them close to Lerato.
“A few days before the incident, as well as on several other occasions after they had argued, I told Boikanyo that he would one day kill my daughter,” the mother told the court.
She added that her daughter’s death had left her “heartbroken”.
“I can’t accept that she is no longer here. She used to do everything for me,” she said.
Detective Sergeant Jan David Makhale, who was the first police official on the scene, on Wednesday described the scene at the house where Olifant was killed as “filled with bloodstains, from the kitchen to the sitting room and into the passage and bedroom, where Olifant was lying in a pool of blood”.
The trial is expected to continue in the Northern Cape High Court on Thursday.
Diamond Fields Advertiser