Final curtain call for woman accused of attempting to cut off the head of her girlfriend
|Published
Murder accused Corrine Jackson. File image
Cape Town - In a turn of events, Corrine Jackson rejected a plea bargain and asked for a trial.
The State is set to prove that she had planned to murder her estranged girlfriend Nadine Esterhuizen in September 2017 in Colorado Park, Mitchells Plain.
Esterhuizen was stabbed 21 times and her killer attempted to cut her head off.
Jackson is also facing a separate charge of common assault for an alleged incident which took place earlier this year involving her new girlfriend’s mother.
A chirpy-looking Jackson, dressed in all black, made her way to the dock at the Mitchells Plain Regional Court yesterday.
She was accompanied by her new girlfriend at the courthouse.
Negotiations and discussions were placed on the table last month for a possible plea bargain.
Yesterday, Jackson made an about-turn and, via her legal aid lawyer, said she wanted to head to trial and would bring between four and five witnesses.
State prosecutor Graham Ferguson informed the court it was another of Jackson’s delay tactics after several postponements and called for a Section 342A, which prevents a case from further delays.
“The matter was set down for a 105 but the defence decided following negotiations to rather go to trial,” he said. “We will call three witnesses which will be sufficient.”
Jackson added she would be pleading not guilty to charges of murder, attempted murder and contravening a protection order and that no assessors were needed to guide the magistrate during the trial, which has been set down for October 19 and 20.
This was further communicated by Magistrate Toboshe, who told Jackson’s legal team that the case has been hit by several delays even with legal abandoning her.
Outside court, Esterhuizen’s mother, Vanessa Esterhuizen said she wanted a trial to find out what the motive was and recalled the day her daughter’s body was found.
She said parts of Esterhuizen’s hair had been pulled out and that she had been wearing socks when trying to escape her attacker, resulting in a trail of bloodied footsteps and splatter on the wall. She said on the day of the funeral, she had to safeguard the coffin as the head was unstable due to the attack.
“I feel relieved but I want to know what made her do what she did. As a mother, I miss my daughter very much, she would have been 24,” she said.
Linda Jones of the Mitchells Plain United Residents Association and victim support said they were happy there would be no more delays.
“She has been using delay tactics and now that a Section 342A has been called, there will be closure for the family.”
The case has been hit with several days in the past five years, with Jackson seeking medical help at psychiatric and psychology facilities, including being ill with Covid-19 and changing her legal representation. Jackson has since been deemed fit to stand trial.
During the first bail hearing Jackson claimed she had acted in self-defence and gave a blow-by-blow account in her version of the fateful day.
The police who took the stand said the wounds on Jackson’s body were self-inflicted and that she had been placed on suicide watch and that she needed to be on medication due to anger outbursts.