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A Chatsworth teenager convicted of murdering her stepfather claims she is being intimidated by the man’s family.
On Thursday, the girl, who cannot be named because she is a minor, appeared briefly in the Durban Regional Court, where her lawyer said she had received intimidating calls.
In May this year, the girl pleaded guilty to the murder of the 32-year-old man before magistrate Anand Maharaj. In her plea, she said she had slipped sleeping tablets into the man’s tea in October 2009. When he fell asleep, she strangled him with a dressing gown belt. She wound the belt around his hands to make it look as if he had committed suicide.
Apparently overcome with guilt three days after the man’s funeral, she confessed to her mother and then to the police.
Motive
The motive for the murder has not yet been revealed and, according to the teenager’s attorney, Siven Samuel, this will be made known at the sentencing stage.
The case had been set down for sentencing on Thursday, but Samuel said the defence wanted another correctional officer’s report to be done as they believed that the first report had been biased against the girl.
Samuel added that the teenager had received intimidating phone calls from the victim’s family.
State prosecutor Val Melis also asked that the girl have no contact with her mother, as it was believed the teenager was being unduly influenced.
Maharaj ordered that the girl not have any contact with the victim’s family or her mother.
“In the case of your mother, I will allow contact over the holiday period, but this must stop as of January 1 next year.”
Angry relatives of the girl’s stepfather were disappointed by the adjournment, saying they wanted justice to be done. The case was adjourned to February for sentencing. – The Mercury
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Teen murderer’s sentencing postponed