Mom can’t recall shooting two kids
Pretoria mother, 34, acted ‘totally out of character’ when she killed her two young sons, psychiatrist tells murder trial.
Mother acted in state of sane automatism, says psychiatrist in murder trial.
A34-year-old Pretoria businessperson had acted “totally out of character” when she shot dead her two young sons and could not be held accountable for her actions, a psychiatrist has told the High Court in Pretoria.
Prof Ivanov Savov testified yesterday in the trial of Rehithile Matjane, 34, who pleaded not guilty to charges of murdering her sons, Alvaro, 2, and Keyon’dre, 6, on a smallholding near Hammanskraal in April 2015. Both boys died after being shot in the head, but their mother insisted she did not know what she was doing and had no recollection of the shooting incident.
She said she was happily married to her husband – Pretoria psychiatrist Dr Mazelle Matjane – had loved her children dearly and would never have intentionally hurt them, even when she was experiencing extreme suicidal thoughts.
Alvaro’s body was found still strapped into the front passenger seat of his mother’s BMW and his brother’s body was found outside the car in a pool of blood. Savov testified that Matjane had acted in a state of sane automatism due to a short-lasting psychotic depressive episode brought on mainly by her use of corticosteroids when she repeatedly used her son’s asthma inhaler, as well as other medication, supplements and alcohol.
He said Matjane had no history of violence and was a completely normal, well-balanced woman with a stable marriage before she killed her children.
The fact that she had bought flu medication and nappies for the children before she shot them showed that she had not planned their deaths but decided to kill them in a matter of seconds or minutes as a form of “extended suicide”.
The incident was so bizarre and out of character that the only explanation for it was that she had acted in a momentary state of severe depression as a reaction to medication, he added.
Savov said the fact that Matjane still had a stable marriage showed that her husband understood that these events were extraordinary and would not be repeated. It was not plausible that Matjane had killed her children out of revenge.
The trial continues.
Matjane was a normal, well-balanced woman.