Women accused of killing her children pleads not guilty, blamed their death on witchcraft

A WOMAN who believed witchcraft, possibly conjured up by her lover’s wife, was behind the death of three of her children has pleaded not guilty of murder.

A MOTHER accused of killing her three youngest children, when she drove a car they were inside into a lake, has said she should not be blamed for the deaths.

A court hearing has been told mum of seven Akon Guode thought witchcraft could be behind the fatal incident.

On Thursday, Guode pleaded not guilty to murdering her one-year-old son, Bol, and twins Hanger and her brother Madit, four, who died when her car crashed into Lake Gladman on April 8 last year.

The 37-year-old also pleaded not guilty in the Melbourne Magistrates Court to the attempted murder of her six-year-old daughter, Alual, who survived after being pulled from the water in Wyndham Vale. She is now applying for bail.

On Wednesday, a key witness said Guode thought she was under a “spell” when she drove into the lake last year.

After the crash, Guode said her lover’s wife might have had “something to do with it” and may have used a witch doctor against her, the woman claimed.

“Maybe she did something to make her drive the car into the water,” the witness told the Melbourne Magistrates Court on Wednesday.

“Like a spell. She didn’t know how she did it, how it happened.” The witness, a woman who can’t be identified, says she ran into mother of seven Guode a second time, a few months after the incident on April 8 last year.

She says she asked Guode: “Did you do it?” and claims Guode replied: “Yeah, I did what I did.” “But she’s thinking it’s a spell or something,” the woman told the court.

“I told her, no I don’t think so.”

All four children involved in the crash were fathered by Joseph Manyang.

He and Guode began an affair after she immigrated to Australia from Sudan and Mr Manyang left his wife in 2010.

Mr Manyang moved into a house on his own, but visited both families regularly.

Prosecutors have said there were rumours circulating that he was going back to his wife.

The witness says she overheard Guode — before the crash — claim Mr Manyang’s wife was threatening her.

Guode allegedly said she would “do something to end it.” “She had enough,” the woman told the court.

“She just wanted to give up.” The court has been told the witness has some mental health issues and has previously been jailed.

She has admitted she was using ice and drinking in April last year, around the time of the alleged conversations involving Guode. The woman also claims members of the Sudanese community have pressured her not to testify, with one man allegedly telling her she could be “gotten rid of”.

Guode says a dizzy spell caused the crash and Mr Manyang believes it was an accident.

The court has been told she suffered from headaches that had affected her driving in the year before the incident.

The hearing continues.