Wasn’t me, says Coates murder accused

“I DIDN’T do the crime.”

These are the words of Dzingai Mahachazi, the man accused of strangling Kathleen Coates to death in her Muizenberg home.

It is alleged that on January 24 last year, at 124 East Island, Marine, Marina de Gama, Mahachazi strangled Coates to death after an argument over the sale of a car.

It is the State’s case that he had befriended Coates, who was a patron at a restaurant at which he worked, and arranged to buy a vehicle from her.

Mahachazi allegedly failed to keep up with the payments.

On the day of Coates’s murder, the accused visited her home.

“An argument arose between the accused and the deceased. The accused killed the deceased by strangling her and applying other blunt force to her person. Afterwards he placed her naked body in the bath, where she was found by a neighbour some days later,” the summary read.

It is alleged that Mahachazi stole Coates’s phone, laptop, ring and ID book.

Mahachazi, who is facing a charge of robbery with aggravating circumstances, murder and fraud, appeared in the Western Cape High Court yesterday.

The trial, however, could not begin as his lawyer, advocate Inge Levendall, told the court she was withdrawing due to conflicting instructions.

Levendall is the second SA Legal Aid lawyer to represent Mahachazi. His first lawyer also withdrew because of the same reasons.

Mahachazi told the court the previous lawyer wanted him to accept a plea bargain.

“I didn’t take it because I didn’t do the crime,” he said.

The matter was postponed to April 6.