Dad on trial for stabbing mom to death, kidnapping son (Pretoria, South Africa)

Dad LARRY BURT PHILLIPS has already admitted to stabbing his wife to death in front of their daughter. Mom had previously obtained an Order of Protection, which was obviously ignored. Dad has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping his son before the incident, though the son says "he had never been so afraid in his life."

http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/4547ce39a72647d186d04b7a99d72b99/25-08-2009-10-00/Then_my_dad_stabbed_my_mom

Student recounts horror attack
2009-08-25 22:00

Pretoria - A young Pretoria student, who saw her father stabbing her mother to death, burst into tears as she took the stand in her father’s murder trial on Tuesday.

"I ran past the neighbour’s flat up the stairs and stood there watching. And then my dad stabbed my mom," Leigh Phillips told the High Court in Pretoria."He stabbed her in the back with a knife."

Phillips sobbed loudly while she walked to the witness box and was still in tears when she took the stand.She completed her evidence against her father Larry Burt Phillips, 51, without another outburst.

Her father admitted stabbing his wife, Henriëtte, to death in a fit of anger at their flat in Lynnwood, Pretoria, in November last year.

He also admitted that he had in October last year assaulted her, causing her to obtain a protection order against her, but denied this was an attempt on her life.

Drinking

Phillips pleaded not guilty to a charge of kidnapping his son Howard on the day of the murder, but admitted that he had assaulted a neighbour by biting him while the man was wrestling him to the ground after he had stabbed his wife.

His daughter told the court he had moved out of the house two weeks before the murder, after her mother obtained a protection order against him.

Her brother had spent hours in her father’s company that night. She later went to fetch him at the police station in Brooklyn, where her brother told her he had never been so afraid in his life.

Her father was also there. He was angry and appeared to have been drinking, but did not want to tell her what was going on.When she and her brother later returned to their flat, her mother - who was with the neighbours - met them outside, hugged her brother.

She and her mother did not want to sleep in their flat that night because they were afraid of their father and went to fetch clothes for the night.

"I was standing in the corridor ... when my mother screamed and came running down the passage. She said I must come and I ran out as well," Leigh testified.

After the stabbing her brother and the neighbour wrestled her father to the ground and took the knife."...Afterwards my father just walked around and smoked a cigarette," Leigh said."I at one stage asked him why he had done it, and he said: 'I’ve warned your mother.' He was kind of boasting about it."Leigh added: "I was very angry, saddened and shocked."

The trial continues on Wednesday.

- SAPA