Verdicts Due in S. Africa Slaying of Newport Woman

The judge presiding over the trial of three young men accused of killing Amy Biehl described the Newport Beach student’s last moments in detail Monday.

High Court Judge Gerald Friedman summarized witness testimony as he read about three-quarters of his 190-page verdict. But he did not indicate whether the defendants would be found guilty or innocent. The verdicts are expected today.

Biehl’s father, Peter, said in a phone interview at the family home in Newport Beach that waiting for the verdict was “a little frustrating” but he understood why the judge was carefully laying out all the facts of the case.

“We’ll get a verdict, but this thing is regrettably not over--it’s far from over,” he said earlier in the day on ABC-TV’s “Good Morning America.” “There’s the sentencing phase . . . and the trial of a fourth defendant. It’s kind of disheartening.”

Although his wife, Linda, has gone with daughters Molly and Kimberly to South Africa twice to observe the trial, the couple decided to stay home during the verdicts.

“We talked about (going to South Africa), but we felt it would’ve been misleading. Our interest there is not in the verdict and the sentencing as much as it is being sure that the justice system was given a chance to operate in a non-circus atmosphere,” Peter Biehl said.

He said the family has been following the events by telephone with the help of a foreign correspondent, who promised to call the Biehls as soon as a verdict is reached. The court is scheduled to go back into session at about 12:30 a.m. PST today.

During the trial, six witnesses said they saw a mob of black youths stab and bludgeon to death the 26-year-old white Fulbright scholar on Aug. 25, 1993, in Guguletu, a township near Cape Town.

Mongezi Manqina, 22, Mzikhona Nofemela, 19, and Vusumzi Ntamo, 23, all members of the militant black Pan Africanist Students’ Organization, have pleaded innocent to charges of murder, public violence and robbery in Biehl’s death.

Some have charged that police forced confessions from the defendants. According to the statements, Nofemela told police he had thrown stones at Biehl’s overturned car, and Ntamo said he had hit her in the head three times with a brick.

Biehl was in South Africa to research women’s rights and help with voter education ahead of the country’s first all-race election. She was killed two days before she was to return home to Newport Beach.

Two women who testified only after being assured their identities would be hidden said they saw Manqina and Nofemela stabbing Biehl as she lay on the grass outside a gas station.

“The deceased ran across the road in the direction of the service station . . . a female kicked her feet out from under her and she fell,” Friedman said.

Referring to testimony from the doctor who performed Biehl’s autopsy, the judge said a small bruise at the edge of a deep stab wound in her chest suggested the knife had been plunged in to its hilt.

Times staff writer Alicia Di Rado in Orange County contributed to this report.