Court hears of wife’s grisly death
Hubby claims alcohol and cocaine affected his mental state
DRAMATIC evidence of drug use, paranoia, alleged infidelity and a “love bite” that sparked a murder emerged in court on Monday regarding the final moments of a Phoenix housewife who was stabbed to death, allegedly by her husband.
Dressed in a navy blue T-shirt and jeans, his hands cuffed behind his back, Mohammed Nadeem Shaik Moideen stood silently in the dock of the Verulam Magistrate’s Court for a bail application.
The 35-year-old carpenter is accused of stabbing housewife Nadia Mia, 34, at their Lenham home on July 29.
In his written bail application read out by attorney Rajen Nathalall, Moideen confirmed he had consumed cocaine and alcohol the night before his wife’s gruesome death.
The following day, he left home at 8am in his brother’s white Jaguar to buy more cocaine and alcohol, the court heard.
He returned home an hour later and he and his wife began fighting in the lounge.
Moideen said he noticed a love bite on her neck.
The argument continued in the kitchen and he picked up a knife.
From that moment, Moideen said he could not recall what had happened.
His last memory was of him crashing his brother’s car in Isipingo Beach and getting a lift to his mother’s home in Asherville, where his brother notified him that his wife was dead and the police were looking for him.
Moideen said the alcohol and cocaine had affected his mental state and he was not thinking properly.
In his bail application, he said he had no intention of killing his wife whom he loved very much.
As Nathalall concluded, Mia’s family, who were seated in the public gallery, shook their heads in disbelief.
Opposing bail, investigating officer Pravin Sukdeo led with a statement taken from one of the couple’s relatives who was at home when Mia was killed.
The girl, a minor, said that around 8pm the night before she had been in the company of the couple in uMhlanga in a white Jaguar when Moideen asked his wife if he could buy drugs. Mia had not responded, she said. Moideen, she added, drove to Overport where he purchased certain items. They proceeded to the Phoenix home where he allegedly consumed drugs.
While Mia was downstairs, the teen had a bath and thereafter watched television with them, the court heard.
While watching TV, Moideen “bit” his wife on the cheek and gave her a “love bite” on the neck, the girl said in the statement that was read out in court.
She said she felt uncomfortable and went to a bedroom where she fell asleep.
At around 10pm she awoke after hearing screams.
She heard the couple shouting at each other.
Moideen was accusing Mia of bringing someone to their home to kill him. He also accused his wife of having an affair.
A few seconds later, Moideen allegedly came into the bedroom, opened the cupboards and told the girl she was hiding someone and that she and Mia had wanted that person to kill him.
The relative said that sometime during the night Moideen cut his left arm with a knife and smeared blood on the entrance to the passage and on Mia.
She said he told Mia, “Now you have blood on you (the) police will know you killed me.” At around 6.30am the following day, Moideen left the home in the white Jaguar and returned two hours later, the court heard.
He allegedly started quarrelling with Mia again.
The relative said Mia screamed at her, telling her to call an uncle to take them away because she wanted to leave her husband.
She contacted the uncle and while still in the bedroom, Mia came up, followed a few seconds later by Moideen.
He allegedly grabbed his wife by her hair and pulled her down the stairs.
The girl said she heard the kitchen cupboards and kitchen door open and ran toward the toilet window that faced the backyard, where she noticed the couple standing outside.
Moideen was holding his wife with his left hand, while she faced him, and then she saw him stab her several times, the court heard.
He allegedly dragged Mia into the house.
The relative fled to a bedroom and locked the door.
By then neighbours arrived and yelled for Moideen to open the main gate.
From the window, the girl saw Moideen standing outside.
After he opened the gate, a neighbour entered the house and screamed that Mia was dead.
It is alleged Moideen jumped into a white Jaguar, reversed out of the driveway and in the process bumped into the gate.
The relative said she had seen Mia’s body, face up, as well as the stab wounds.
She waited at a neighbour’s house until police arrived.
The bail application was adjourned to Monday and Moideen was remanded in custody.
TYRONE PILLAY, 31, remains in police custody following the murder of his former girlfriend Annelene Pillay in November last year.
Pillay allegedly shot the 27-year-old woman five times in the head as she was leaving her work in Rossburgh, where she was employed as a customer care controller.
The couple had reportedly broken up 10 months before the killing. Pillay had apparently been stalking her.
SEELAN NAIDU of uMhlanga, a former policeman turned businessman, died in Westville Prison last year.
He pleaded not guilty to murdering his wife Nalin in 2014.
The State had alleged that Naidu had orchestrated the October 29 murder.
Nalin had gone missing that day, after Naidu told police he had dropped her off at Malvern Mall. Her body was found in a field in Shongweni, outside Pinetown, a day later.
Her throat had been slit and she had sustained facial injuries. Six people were arrested for the murder and two of them pleaded guilty. They said Naidu had been the mastermind.
INDERESAN “ALVIN” MAISTRY was jailed for life for murdering his wife, Charmaine Naidoo, on February 17, 2014.
Maistry had hired hitmen Mandelenkosi Zamokhawakeh Jobe, 41, and Bongani Lucky John Manyathi, 28, to kill her.
Durban High Court Acting Judge Burt Laing said the robbery at the couple’s home in Merebank was a ruse.
SHOLIN BISSON, 21, was found guilty in the Durban High Court of murdering his girlfriend, Kimeera Rajbunsi, 17.
He had hit her with a frying pan and stabbed her six times after he refused to accept her decision to break up with him.
Bisson attacked Rajbunsi in her home in Phoenix, drove to Glen Anil and dumped her body in a dam in a sugar cane field in May 2015.
He was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment.
ANTHEA GOVINDASAMY, a Pietermaritzburg nurse, was stabbed 19 times in front of her two sons at Howick Falls by her husband, Jaiseelan Govindsamy, on March 25, 2007.
In 2009, Govindsamy was jailed for 20 years in the Pietermaritzburg High Court.
The judge found that the murder was premeditated because Govindsamy had suspected his wife was having an affair.
RAJIV SEWNARAIN, a Clairwood businessman, admitted to killing his wife on December 10, 2010, because she was “a nag”. He is serving a life sentence at Westville Prison.
Shanaaz, 40, was shot dead execution-style.
Sewnarain confessed to paying two hit men R30 000 to kill his wife of 20 years.
They staged a hijacking and Shanaaz was found shot dead in Folweni on the outskirts of Isipingo.
He said his marriage had been volatile and fraught with arguments and difficulties.