Niël Terblanché
Members of the Nam ibian Police were horrified when Michael Simaneka Martin, a resident of the Oshikweyo Village near Eheke committed suicide by shooting himself in the head while they were approaching him for questioning. Martin is accused of killing two of his colleagues on Tuesday, before fleeing to the north.
The horrific suicide was also witnessed by members of Martin’s family.
According to the incident report provided by the Public Relations Division of the Namibian Police, the 30-year-old Martin was the main suspect in the brutal murder of 22-year-old Visser Bock and his 30-year-old brother Albertus Bock.
The bodies of the Bock brothers were discovered by members of the police in the Khomas Region in their rooms on Farm Josephine near Dordabis on Tuesday. The police are also investigating a case of armed robbery and theft.
The farm belongs to a retired Judge and the Bock brothers were employed on the farm. Martin left the employ of the former judge a few days before he committed suicide.
According to the report about the brutal double murder, one of the workers on Farm Josephine phoned their employer to inform him of an armed robbery that was in progress on the farm.
The worker informed the former Judge that six armed men stormed the house and demanded the code to the safe inside the farmhouse.
The report further states that when the workers could not provide the code to open the safe, they forced a worker to phone the employer and demanded the code from him. The former Judge refused to provide the number and immediately informed the police about the robbery in progress.
Both the former Judge and members of the Namibian Police rushed to the scene and when they arrived on the farm, they discovered the bodies of the Bock brothers in their houses. Both were killed by shots to their heads.
“Further investigations, however, quickly revealed that the horrific murder scene was not as fresh as alleged by the person who called the former Judge to inform him of the robbery in progress. The bodies of the deceased persons were already in a decomposed state,” the police report reads.
Investigators discovered that Martin was the person who called the former Judge and that he made the call from the North after having left the farm three days before reporting the robbery to his employer.
According to the report, Martin stole a Toyota Landcruiser bakkie and two firearms from the farm before driving the stolen vehicle to his home village in the North with the rest of the stolen goods.
It is suspected that Martin called his employer a few days after the actual robbery in an effort to throw investigators off his trail.
He was, however, quickly identified as the main suspect in the brutal double murder and traced to the village in the Oshana Region.
“At about 07:00 on Wednesday morning, members of the Namibian Police paid a visit to the suspect’s house but he committed suicide in full view of them and members of his family,” the report reads.
He used one of the firearms he stole from his employer to shoot himself.
The other stolen firearm and the Landcruiser bakkie were discovered during a search of the homestead.
