4th massacre suspect insists on his innocence

“I DID not know.” ….. With that concise answer, Stoney Neidel – the last man to be arrested and charged over the mass murder of eight people at a farm between Rehoboth and Kalkrand last year – insisted in the High Court in Windhoek on Friday that he had no idea of the actual bloody origins of a large quantity of goods stolen from the massacre site that ended up being stored at his house in Rehoboth and at his home on a farm west of the town.

Neidel denied any involvement in the massacre, or having had prior knowledge of the crimes that were committed at farm Kareeboomkolk on March 4 to 5 last year, when he brought a bail application before Judges Sylvester Mainga and Louis Muller on Friday. The court reserved its ruling after hearing testimony from Neidel (29) and Inspector Kobie Theron, the Police detective in charge of the investigation of the Kareeboomkolk killings, and final arguments from Neidel’s defence lawyer, Winnie Christians, and Deputy Prosecutor-General Antonia Verhoef.Neidel initially appeared set to be used as a State witness in the trial of murder suspects Sylvester Beukes (21), his brother, Gavin Beukes (24), and Justus Christiaan (‘Shorty’) Erasmus (28), the son of slain farm owners Justus Christiaan and Elzabé Erasmus.Erasmus Jnr is accused of having been the mastermind behind a plan to have his parents killed.However, on March 31 this year, only five days before the case against the three suspects was to be transferred to the High Court, Neidel, too, was arrested and added to the case as an accused.Since his arrest, he has suffered a heavy personal blow when his wife died about three weeks ago, the court was told on Friday.The trial, set to take place in the High Court, was not expected to start before the end of this year, Verhoef informed the two Judges on Friday.She said according to the Registrar of the High Court, the first available date for the trial on the court’s roll would be in February next year.At the trial, she told Neidel when she cross-examined him, the State’s case would be that Neidel conspired with the Beukes brothers before the crimes were committed, that they informed him that they needed a safe place for the loot that they planned to steal on the weekend of March 5 last year, and that Neidel then made arrangements to be ready to receive and keep the stolen goods, including livestock, at the communal farm west if Rehoboth where he farmed.Neidel denied the accusation that he had known what the Beukes brothers were planning, or that he knew where the goods that they brought to his house at Rehoboth and also to the farm in the early morning hours of March 6 last year were coming from.All he knew, he told the court, was that the brothers had approached him with a request to help them get a place where they wanted to keep some animals, since they also wanted to start farming, he related.On March 3 last year, he added, they told him that they would be collecting the animals that coming weekend, which started the next day.At 15h47 on March 5 – the day that the Erasmus couple was shot dead at their farm, where six other people had by then also been slain since the previous day – he received a cellphone call from the phone of Gavin Beukes, but it was Sylvester Beukes who was on the line, telling him that he and his brother were near Mariental on their way to him with the animals, Neidel confirmed when Verhoef told him what part of the State’s evidence at the trial would be.According to Theron, cellphone records show that this call was made from the vicinity of the farm where the murders had taken place.That showed that the Beukes brothers were at that stage still at the murder scene – something that he thought Neidel’s evidence in this regard could be used to back up, Theron told the court.On the evening of March 5 last year, at 20h13 and 20h18, two calls were also made to Neidel’s cellphone from the cellphone number of Gavin Beukes, Theron further told the court.Cellphone records show that these calls were made from the slain Mr Erasmus’s phone, after Gavin Beukes’s cellphone SIM card had been put into that phone, he added.Neidel did not answer those calls, the records also show.Theron also testified that after their arrest the day after the massacre, Sylvester Beukes admitted to him that he had carried out the killings.Gavin Beukes denied any involvement, Theron said.Neidel told the Judges that after the Beukes brothers had arrived at his house with not just a bakkie-load, but also a trailer-load, of goods, including small livestock, with them, they told him that these were things that they had inherited from Sylvester Beukes’s father.He did not suspect foul play at that stage, Neidel insisted.Only after the Police had arrived at farm Areb, where he stayed, on March 6, and informed him of the murders at Kareeboomkolk, did he hear about the killings and where the goods had actually come from, he said.That news stunned him, Neidel said: “At that point of time, during the evening, it was just like a dream to me.The next morning, I was shocked.”Christians told the court in his arguments that there was no evidence contradicting Neidel’s claim that he had first heard about the murders from the Police, or that he did not know where the stolen goods had actually come from.There is direct evidence to implicate ‘Shorty’ Erasmus in the crimes, according to Christians, yet he has been granted bail, while the evidence against Neidel is much weaker, the defence lawyer argued.Verhoef, however, argued that there was indeed evidence showing that Neidel had been involved with the Beukes brothers in the prior planning of the crimes.She argued that there was a likelihood that Neidel could be found guilty on the basis of this evidence, and that this likelihood was enough to persuade the court to refuse him bail.The court is set to deliver its ruling on June 14.The court reserved its ruling after hearing testimony from Neidel (29) and Inspector Kobie Theron, the Police detective in charge of the investigation of the Kareeboomkolk killings, and final arguments from Neidel’s defence lawyer, Winnie Christians, and Deputy Prosecutor-General Antonia Verhoef.Neidel initially appeared set to be used as a State witness in the trial of murder suspects Sylvester Beukes (21), his brother, Gavin Beukes (24), and Justus Christiaan (‘Shorty’) Erasmus (28), the son of slain farm owners Justus Christiaan and Elzabé Erasmus.Erasmus Jnr is accused of having been the mastermind behind a plan to have his parents killed.However, on March 31 this year, only five days before the case against the three suspects was to be transferred to the High Court, Neidel, too, was arrested and added to the case as an accused.Since his arrest, he has suffered a heavy personal blow when his wife died about three weeks ago, the court was told on Friday.The trial, set to take place in the High Court, was not expected to start before the end of this year, Verhoef informed the two Judges on Friday.She said according to the Registrar of the High Court, the first available date for the trial on the court’s roll would be in February next year.At the trial, she told Neidel when she cross-examined him, the State’s case would be that Neidel conspired with the Beukes brothers before the crimes were committed, that they informed him that they needed a safe place for the loot that they planned to steal on the weekend of March 5 last year, and that Neidel then made arrangements to be ready to receive and keep the stolen goods, including livestock, at the communal farm west if Rehoboth where he farmed.Neidel denied the accusation that he had known what the Beukes brothers were planning, or that he knew where the goods that they brought to his house at Rehoboth and also to the farm in the early morning hours of March 6 last year were coming from.All he knew, he told the court, was that the brothers had approached him with a request to help them get a place where they wanted to keep some animals, since they also wanted to start farming, he related.On March 3 last year, he added, they told him that they would be collecting the animals that coming weekend, which started the next day.At 15h47 on March 5 – the day that the Erasmus couple was shot dead at their farm, where six other people had by then also been slain since the previous day – he received a cellphone call from the phone of Gavin Beukes, but it was Sylvester Beukes who was on the line, telling him that he and his brother were near Mariental on their way to him with the animals, Neidel confirmed when Verhoef told him what part of the State’s evidence at the trial would be.According to Theron, cellphone records show that this call was made from the vicinity of the farm where the murders had taken place.That showed that the Beukes brothers were at that stage still at the murder scene – something that he thought Neidel’s evidence in this regard could be used to back up, Theron told the court.On the evening of March 5 last year, at 20h13 and 20h18, two calls were also made to Neidel’s cellphone from the cellphone number of Gavin Beukes, Theron further told the court.Cellphone records show that these calls were made from the slain Mr Erasmus’s phone, after Gavin Beukes’s cellphone SIM card had been put into that phone, he added.Neidel did not answer those calls, the records also show.Theron also testified that after their arrest the day after the massacre, Sylvester Beukes admitted to him that he had carried out the killings.Gavin Beukes denied any involvement, Theron said.Neidel told the Judges that after the Beukes brothers had arrived at his house with not just a bakkie-load, but also a trailer-load, of goods, including small livestock, with them, they told him that these were things that they had inherited from Sylvester Beukes’s father.He did not suspect foul play at that stage, Neidel insisted.Only after the Police had arrived at farm Areb, where he stayed, on March 6, and informed him of the murders at Kareeboomkolk, did he hear about the killings and where the goods had actually come from, he said.That news stunned him, Neidel said: “At that point of time, during the evening, it was just like a dream to me.The next morning, I was shocked.”Christians told the court in his arguments that there was no evidence contradicting Neidel’s claim that he had first heard about the murders from the Police, or that he did not know where the stolen goods had actually come from.There is direct evidence to implicate ‘Shorty’ Erasmus in the crimes, according to Christians, yet he has been granted bail, while the evidence against Neidel is much weaker, the defence lawyer argued.Verhoef, however, argued that there was indeed evidence showing that Neidel had been involved with the Beukes brothers in the prior planning of the crimes.She argued that there was a likelihood that Neidel could be found guilty on the basis of this evidence, and that this likelihood was enough to persuade the court to refuse him bail.The court is set to deliver its ruling on June 14.