July 26 2005
A
domestic worker has told a Durban regional court how her employer of 16 years
"begged" her repeatedly for two weeks to find someone to kill her husband.
She finally relented and approached someone she knew, who said he "would
easily do it because it was a white person".
This was the evidence of Doris Mzobe, 52, who has been granted indemnity from
prosecution in return for her testimony against the two men she claims were
hired by her employer, Elsabe Gower-Winter, to kill her husband, Ivan Richard
Gower-Winter, in July last year.
Her husband, although shot in the face, survived his ordeal. Bearing visible
scars, he has also given evidence in the ongoing trial of Bhekumuzi Douglas
Mpanza and Nhlanhla Xulu, who are charged with conspiracy to commit murder and
attempted murder. They have pleaded not guilty before magistrate Anand Maharaj.
In his evidence, Gower-Winter described how he had returned home from work on
July 23 2004 to find his Amanzimtoti home fully locked up.
After going inside once to fetch keys to open up the garage to park his car,
he returned through the front door to find a man kneeling and pointing a gun
at him.
"He stood up and shot me through the face ... the bullet entered below my left
eye and came out through my right ear," he said.
Although bleeding profusely, he tried to chase his attacker, who fired another
shot which missed him and hit the wall.
The second man, he said, was hiding behind a cabinet. Before running away, he
said, "Ask your wife, she knows about this."
When his wife came home, she took him to hospital, where he spent three days
in the intensive care unit.
Domestic worker Mzobe testified that Mrs Gower-Winter had begged her to find
someone to kill her husband.
"She said he would kill her if he found out she had misused his money ... she
offered R50 000 to the killers and said she would give me a fridge, furniture,
rebuild my house, anything I wanted.
She claimed to have recruited Xulu and had given him Mrs Gower-Winter's phone
number. On July 23 at about 4pm, as she was locking up the house, she had seen
Xulu and Mpanza outside, Mzobe said.
The trial will continue on September 22.
Gower-Winter pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of her now ex-husband in a
separate court case earlier this year.
In her written plea, she said they had been married since 1968 but had always
had a stormy relationship.
In 2003, her husband had started pressing her for a divorce and, under threat,
she had eventually signed the divorce agreement. She had been distraught when,
one day, he informed her that they had already been divorced for two weeks.
Medical evidence before the court was that she suffered from a rare
degenerative brain illness called Picks disease, which causes dementia and
death, usually within five years.
Experts said her ability to distinguish right from wrong had been compromised
because of this.
She was given a wholly suspended sentence by magistrate Trevor Levitt, on
condition that she remain in a secure nursing home in Gauteng and have no
contact with her ex-husband.
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