Unanswered question endures for murder victim’s family

“Was there a reason why he was killed?”

Nearly 13 years after the killing of Andre Heckmair, his mother asked this question in the Windhoek High Court yesterday, when she testified during a presentence hearing for the two United States citizens convicted of murdering and robbing Heckmair on 7 January 2011.

Heckmair’s mother, Birgit Heckmair, told judge Christie Liebenberg that she, her husband and their daughter still want to know why their son and brother was killed.

“We never heard from the killers why they killed him, and we want to know why,” she said.

The death of their son at the age of 25 had an enduring effect on her family and is an event with which she and her husband have not been able to make peace, she added.

For her husband, the death of their son was also the loss of his best friend, she also said.

Her son was an outgoing person who planned to pursue a career in hotel management, she told the court.

Andre Heckmair was studying at a hotel school in Switzerland, and was killed five months before he would have completed his education there, she said as well.

Liebenberg heard the testimony five weeks after he delivered his verdict in the trial of Americans Marcus Thomas (38) and Kevan Townsend (37).

Liebenberg convicted both men on charges of murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances and possession of a firearm and ammunition. Thomas was also found guilty on additional charges of importing firearm barrels into Namibia and attempting to defeat or obstruct the course of justice, while Townsend was convicted of possession of firearm barrels as well.

Thomas and Townsend denied guilt on all charges during their trial, which started in November 2004. They did not testify in their own defence after the state concluded its case against them in May this year.

In the judgement that he delivered in September, Liebenberg found that the evidence before him showed Thomas and Townsend jointly planned to murder Heckmair and acted with common purpose when Heckmair was killed with a single gunshot to his head in a car in a quiet street in Klein Windhoek on 7 January 2011.

Heckmair’s cellphone and wallet were stolen when he was murdered, and both the cellphone and wallet were not recovered by the police during their investigation of his death. During the trial, the court heard that the woman with whom Heckmair was involved in a romantic relationship at the time of his death had previously been in a relationship with Thomas, and that a photograph showing Thomas and Heckmair’s girlfriend together was found on Thomas’ laptop computer during the police’s investigation.

Defence lawyers who represented Thomas during the trial also told some of the state’s witnesses that according to Thomas he and Heckmair – who lived and worked in New York City during 2010 – knew each other and had business dealings with each other in the past. That claim of Thomas was first revealed to the court in August 2021 – more than ten years since the arrest of Thomas and Townsend and nearly seven years after the start of their trial. The presentence hearing is due to continue today, after Thomas’ current defence lawyer, Salomon Kanyemba, asked the judge yesterday to be given more time to have a consultation with his client.

At the start of the hearing yesterday, Kanyemba and Townsend’s legal representative, Mbanga Siyomunji, informed the judge they had instructions to apply for a special entry to be made by the court about proceedings during the trial that the two convicted men claim were irregular or not according to law.

With no application for a special entry to be made before Liebenberg yet, he directed that the presentence hearing should proceed. Thomas and Townsend have been held in custody since their arrest at a guest house in Windhoek during the evening of 7 January 2011.

Deputy prosecutor general Antonia Verhoef is representing the state.