Woman recounts deadly knife attack on mother

A teacher accused of murdering his wife in a knife stabbing in Windhoek four years ago repeatedly said he was “tired of this” while carrying out the fatal attack, his stepdaughter told a judge in the Windhoek High Court yesterday.

“He was violently stabbing my mother with a knife while yelling the words, ‘I’m tired of this’,” the 22-year-old Sharone Boois recounted from the witness stand on the first day of the murder trial of her stepfather, Patric Stanley Gaingob.

Boois was the first state witness to testify in Gaingob’s trial before judge Herman January.

Gaingob (42) denied guilt on four charges – a count of murder, read with the provisions of the Combating of Domestic Violence Act, a charge of defeating or obstructing the course of justice, and counts of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm and assault – as his trial started yesterday.

The state is alleging that he murdered his wife, Merenta Gaingos (38), when he attacked her with a knife at their home in Windhoek during the night of 12 to 13 April 2019.

Gaingob and his wife were both employed as teachers at the time she was killed.

Defence lawyer Jermaine Muchali informed the the judge that Gaingob’s plea on the counts of murder and defeating or obstructing the course of justice are based on his version that at the time of the incident he was not criminally responsible for his actions, as he had a mental illness in the form of major depression.

Boois recounted that she and the rest of her family were asleep when Gaingob arrived home in an intoxicated state and knocked on a window to get somebody to let him into the house.

She said her younger sister and her mother both got up to open the door for Gaingob, and she heard her mother asking him why he was making a noise outside.

Boois said Gaingob went into the kitchen of the house, where she heard him handling cutlery, before he proceeded to her mother’s bedroom.

Boois continued that she heard her mother yelling from her bedroom. When she went to the bedroom to see what was going on, she found Gaingob stabbing her mother, who was lying on her bed, repeatedly with a knife.

“I’m tired of this!” he was repeating while carrying out the stabbing, she said.

Boois recounted that her mother ran out of the room to her sister’s bedroom, where she collapsed. Gaingob followed her.

According to Boois, she found Gaingob kneeling next to her mother where she lay on the floor. He was trying to stab her again, but Boois grabbed his arm.

Boois told the court that while she was holding his arm, Gaingob said: “Leave me, I’m tired of this; I’m tired of her!”

The knife was taken away from Gaingob with the help of a tenant who lived on the premises, Boois said.

Gaingos was taken to Katutura Intermediate Hospital, where surgery was performed on her before she was transferred to Windhoek Central Hospital, Boois continued.

She died on the same day, though.

Muchali informed Boois that according to Gaingob he had been consuming alcohol before he returned home on the evening in question. Gaingob does not recall anything that happened inside the house, including the stabbing and the words he uttered, Muchali said.

Gaingob has been held in custody since his arrest on 13 April 2019.
State advocate Seredine Jacobs is representing the prosecution in the trial, which is continuing.