Nurse recounts quarrel with husband who disappeared then was found dead

The evidence of the estranged wife of a murdered Transnet engineer was challenged by the state during cross-examination in the Durban high court on Wednesday.

Nurse Nompumelelo Goncalves is charged alongside her cousin Nkosinathi Zungu for the disappearance and murder of Nkosi Langa, who was kidnapped from his Pinetown home in September 2020.

Langa’s decomposed body was discovered in the Ozwathini area and his car was discovered the next month, October.

Hitman James “Ramaphosa” Mashudu was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment after pleading guilty to the murder in November 2020. He claimed Langa was strangled with a cord by himself and Zungu. He said Goncalves hired Zunga and the hitmen to carry out the murder because she was a victim of domestic abuse.

Goncalves alleged that on September 27 2020 she and her husband quarrelled but the argument was resolved when they went to the Pinetown police station.

She said they parted ways and they went about their errands.

However, when she returned to their house she found she been locked out. This prompted her to go back to the police station where she reported this. Police told her she could enter the house because was the co-owner.

She claimed she enlisted the help of Zungu to come from Mtubatuba to help her. She said when he arrived, he jumped over the fence before opening the gate manually.

State prosecutor Krishen Shah, however, rejected Goncalves' version, saying Zungu previously told the court that he had not ventured on to the property on that day.

Shah also questioned how Zungu had made his way to the property from northern KwaZulu-Natal on a Sunday night when transport wasn’t easily available.

Goncalves claimed she had picked him up near the McDonald's fast food outlet on Josiah Gumede Road in Pinetown.

Shah, however, put it to her that she had facilitated his arrival earlier because of the plot to kill Langa. She denied this. 

The matter was adjourned to December.

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