They had lost track of time at this point, but it must have been near midnight when they left Mynhardt’s house. They were looking for trouble. They trawled through various parts of the town frequented by soldiers but could not find any. They were not looking for a specific soldier; any soldier would do for Viljoen’s revenge. Eventually they found themselves at the area set aside as a taxi rank and bus stop. They turned their wrath on three innocent people waiting for a bus. They were the deceased, Miss Elizabeth Mokoena, and her two brothers, Mr Lesia Mokoena and Mr Petrus Nkomo.
Mynhardt started by saying that he and his friends were policemen and demanded to see their identity documents. The two men had theirs but their sister did not. Mynhardt said she should be taken to the police station. They forced Miss Mokoena into the loading bin of the bakkie and they drove off. Viljoen was driving, Mynhardt sat in the cab with him and Wessels and Swanepoel rode at the back with Mokoena. Mokoena’s brothers were left at the bus stop. During the ride Wessels kicked Mokoena in the face for no reason. She pleaded with them. They drove to Loch Athlone on the Fouriesburg road. Viljoen stopped the bakkie at a secluded spot.
Mynhardt told Miss Mokoena to remove her clothes and she complied. Mynhardt then raped her. There was more drinking; they still had some of the Klipdrift and a litre of Coca-Cola left. Viljoen and Swanepoel then followed Mynhardt in raping the woman. Having done so they spurred Wessels on, calling him chicken. Finally he too then raped Miss Mokoena. When he had finished she said she was going to the police and got up. Wessels hit her on the back of her head with the empty Coca-Cola bottle. She was left there in a semi-conscious state as they drove off.
Mynhardt had to be back at work at six a.m. and asked them to take him home. They left him at his house. Wessels insisted on returning to the scene. They found Miss Mokoena on her knees, having recovered sufficiently from her ordeal to get up and to start dressing herself.
Wessels took a fishing knife from the glove box of the bakkie. Swanepoel told him not to stab her and tried to stop his friend, but Wessels ignored him. He walked over to Miss Mokoena and stabbed her six times, though one stab wound in her back was sufficiently mortal on its own, having punctured a lung. He then tried to cut her throat.
When they realised that she was still not dead Viljoen drove the bakkie over her. However, he failed to inflict any further injury because he had driven over her lengthwise, straddling her with the wheels. Wessels then took charge and drove over her twice, forwards and backwards, making sure that the wheels went over her each time.
They drove back to town. On the way Wessels ordered Viljoen to stop and he threw the knife into a pond. Having eventually gone their separate ways both went to bed.
Miss Mokoena’s partly dressed body was discovered late in the afternoon. She was lying on her back with her left hand across her breast and her right arm raised, fist clenched. Some items of clothing were lying nearby. The cause of death was established to be bleeding and a collapsed lung.
On 16 January 1986 the four men surrendered themselves to the Bethlehem police. At their trial they raised three principal defences. They contended that they were so drunk that they could not form the requisite intent to rape and, in any event, alleged that Miss Mokoena had consented to intercourse. As far as the murder charge was concerned, Mynhardt’s defence was that he had nothing to do with it; he had remained at his home when the other three went back to the scene. Swanepoel’s defence was that he too had had nothing to do with the killing and that he even tried to stop Wessels from killing Miss Mokoena. Wessels and Viljoen contended that they had been too drunk to form the intention to kill. Viljoen had an additional defence: that his actions had not contributed in any way to Miss Mokoena’s death.
The Court’s verdict was that all four accused were not guilty on the robbery charges. On the rape charge all four were convicted. On the murder charge Wessels and Viljoen were convicted and Swanepoel and Mynhardt were acquitted.
Counsel for Wessels submitted that three circumstances separately and cumulatively constituted extenuating circumstances: (a) the fact that Wessels had been only eighteen years and four months old at the time, (b) his susceptibility to the influence of others, and (c) the degree of intoxication. In Viljoen’s case, his lesser degree of participation, his relative youthfulness and the degree of intoxication were advanced as extenuating circumstances.
The Court concluded that extenuating circumstances had not been proved with regard to Wessels. In Viljoen’s case, however, the Court found that extenuating circumstances were present in his youthfulness, the fact that he had acted on the impulse of the moment, that he had not physically caused Miss Mokoena’s death, and that he had not been shown to have acted out of inherent wickedness.
On 2 October 1986 Wessels was sentenced to death and Viljoen to nine years imprisonment. Each of the four accused was sentenced to eight years imprisonment on the rape charge.
Wessels was twenty years old when he followed Scheepers onto the trapdoors.
Wierda and I made detailed notes about this case, mostly in the form of questions that had formed in our minds as we read the judgments and the submissions. We knew from what Labuschagne had told us that he had become attached to Wessels and we had to find a way to use that in his defence. What did the four men plot and discuss before they went to the police station to surrender themselves? Who had made the decision to surrender, to tell the police what had happened? Was the full truth ever told in Court, or was that a sanitised version put together to protect some of the others?
I also thought about Scheepers. There seemed to be no real basis for a comparison between him and Wessels. Scheepers had been the ringleader, a five-star psychopath, cruel, calculating and unrepentant. Wessels, on the other hand, appeared to have been a quiet, unassuming and withdrawn young man, a boy still on the verge of manhood. He had to be encouraged at the scene to participate in the rape of Miss Mokoena. The three other men were the leaders of the pack at that time and they were all older. Was Wessels trying to prove something to them? What turned Wessels into the leader when he returned to the scene with Viljoen? Whose idea had it been to return to the scene and kill Mokoena? When was that decision made?
I needed to understand why Wessels and the others had killed. What made them kill?
There was on obvious parallel between Wessels and Labuschagne, two young men from good homes who had started out as meek and well mannered but ended up killing. Was there a gang mentality in both cases? Did the teamwork of the hanging process turn Labuschagne into a killer even when on his own? The trial would provide some answers, but not clear answers.
By six o’clock we had run out of ideas and energy, and Wierda had a young family to tend, so we wrapped it up for the day. I called home and asked Liesl how the boys were. ‘As usual,’ she said, ‘fighting half the time and playing together the other half.’
At least things were normal back at home.
Palace of Justice
16
I phoned my sister from Wierda’s chambers.
‘Annelise, are you going to invite me to dinner?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘come over now and you and Pierre can do a braai. We have some nice warthog steaks and a fillet in the fridge.’
‘Get the red wine out,’ I said, ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
Wierda dropped me off on his way home. I was still in my suit.
Pierre looked relaxed within the boundaries of his house and garden, I thought. But as soon as he got to the other side of the fence he became restless and distressed, Annelise had told me.
I sat in Pierre’s lapa and watched as he put the fire together with leadwood logs split into quarters. The coals would glow deep into the night. The lapa was built in the traditional African style, a low mud-brick wall with a wide gap for an entrance and a wavy thatched roof on creosote poles for privacy and protection from the sun. The braai was built into the outside wall of the lapa, with the thatch curving around well away from the flames.
I don’t think I have ever seen a man with such strong and blond hair as Pierre’s. His hair wasn’t just blond, it was white, and it was thick and strong. Combined with his tanned skin and light-blue eyes his hair created a startling effect. I wouldn’t like to get into a scrap with him.
Pierre didn’t say much and I had a tough time making conversation. Some subjects were out of bounds but I felt I had to bring the conversation round to one that was of immediate interest to me.
‘Pierre, tell me how it feels to be shot at,’ I asked gingerly.
He stood up and came over to me. Without a word he took the wine glass from my hand and refilled it. I took a deep draught from the glass.
‘It is better to shoot first,’ Pierre said. He was looking into the fire.
‘Even then, how does it feel when they shoot back?’ I insisted.
‘Shooting someone and being shot at are equally bad. The one is no better than the other.’
I knew he had killed in the war in Angola. I knew also that he never spoke about it, but I had to take the risk nevertheless.
‘What does it feel like to kill someone?’ I asked.
He stood bent over at the fire and looked at me over the curve of his shoulder. After a very long silence in which he held my gaze he said, ‘You’ve asked me this before and I told you no one ever talks about it. That includes me.’
I knew I had to break through now or I would never get the door open.
‘I know that,’ I answered, ‘but Pierre, please. I’m fighting for a man’s life here. It is the opposite of killing. And I need to know what only you can tell me.’
‘Why me?’
‘Because I trust you. And because you can trust me.’
Then my instincts told me to go straight at him. ‘Pierre, what is the worst killing you have ever done? Tell me.’
He pottered around the fire for a long time. I sipped my wine and watched. He wasn’t doing anything specific or constructive; he was playing for time. Eventually I decided that the subject was too uncomfortable and that he was not going to answer. Annelise called me to fetch the meat from the kitchen. I was reluctant to leave the lapa and stood up slowly.
As I walked past Pierre, he said softly, his voice dropping, ‘When I had to shoot a woman.’
I stopped in my tracks. ‘When you did what?’
He repeated, louder, ‘When I had to shoot a woman. That was the worst.’
I called to Annelise that I’d be there in a minute and sat down again, closer to Pierre.
‘Can you talk about it?’ I asked.
‘No.’
He changed the subject, making small talk that continued after I’d fetched the meat until Annelise and the children came out to join us.
I renewed my attack on his reticence after we had eaten and Annelise and the children had left the lapa again. ‘Pierre, how long have we known each other?’
He was looking up at the stars without answering me. No answer was needed because we had known each other from the time he was still at university and courting my sister. Now their children were in school already.
‘You are going to have to talk to someone some time, and it might as well be me.’
He was obstinate. ‘What if I don’t want to talk?’ he said with a note of belligerence.
‘Ag kak, man!’ I said.
He stirred the embers with the barbecue tongs. ‘No really. What if I just don’t want to talk?’
I had only one card and I’d already played it. ‘What if I need help and only you can provide it?’
He did not look up from the fire. ‘I am not ready to tell the whole story, and it might get you into trouble if they find out that I’ve told you.’
‘Just tell me what you can, and let’s take it from there.’
He started with a blunt statement.
‘I’m not mad.’
I nodded. That much I knew.
Pierre dropped me off at the hotel much later, but there was still time to read another case and to make a summary of the salient facts. This time I was forewarned and ordered a bottle in advance. The hotel sent up an unremarkable Nederburg.
v3695 Jim Kgethang Mokwena
17
Mokwena faced four charges, two counts of murder and one each of robbery with aggravating circumstances and rape. He had robbed Mr and Mrs Dercksen on their smallholding, raped Mrs Dercksen and killed them both.
The Dercksens were a retired couple who lived in the Bredell section outside Kempton Park. They kept much to themselves and the highlight of their week was Sunday afternoon when their sons and daughters came to visit with the couple’s grandchildren. They kept a few animals, a milk cow and its calf, a heifer, some fowls and two dogs. At the time of his death Mr Dercksen was seventy-four years old and Mrs Dercksen sixty-nine.
Their daughter and son-in-law, Jan Venter, had visited them on Sunday 16 March 1986. Venter had spoken to the elderly couple the following Wednesday evening when they had telephoned to wish him a happy birthday. The Venters received their weekly milk supply from Mr Dercksen; that was one of the reasons for their regular Sunday visits. When Venter arrived at the smallholding in the late afternoon of the next Sunday, 23 March, he noticed immediately that there was something wrong. The gate was hanging askew, its bottom hinge dislodged. A tree in the privet lane was broken. He found a short note written by one of the Dercksens’ daughters pinned to the back door, to the effect that she had been there earlier in the afternoon but found her parents were away. On his arrival the cows had come running towards him and on closer inspection it became obvious that they had been without water for days. Venter immediately watered them. Then he noticed that the shed was locked, something his father-in-law had never done. A terrible smell emanated from the shed. One of the Dercksens’ sons arrived and he and Venter forced entry into the shed. They found Mr Dercksen’s body on the floor of the shed, partly covered by grass. A wire ligature was tied tightly around his neck. The body was already in an advanced state of decomposition.
Shocked by what they had found they started looking for Mrs Dercksen. They broke into the house and found that the telephone line had been cut. There were signs that someone other than the Dercksens had been in the house for some time. A suitcase packed with Mrs Dercksen’s clothing was found in the bedroom. In the meantime more members of the family had arrived at the smallholding. Since they could not alert the police by telephone, they sent someone to the police station while others continued their frantic search for Mrs Dercksen. Someone spotted an area of recently disturbed ground near the cowshed. In that shallow grave they found Mrs Dercksen’s body, no more than twelve metres from where her husband’s body lay.
What happened to the Dercksens between Wednesday 19 March and Saturday 22 March 1986 was subsequently recounted by Mokwena:
I was arrested today and have made a mess. I have killed people. I found them at the house. I went into the house in the morning. I found the man at the cowshed. I grabbed him around the waist with my arms. I then picked up a rock and hit him with it while he was lying on the ground. He was bleeding. I then took a piece of wire from my pocket and tied it around his neck. After that I took grass and placed it on him. Then I took the lock and locked the cowshed. I walked away.
I then came across a white woman. She was afraid. I called her. She ran away. I prevented her from fleeing. I tripped her and she fell down. I pulled her to the house and locked the door.
I asked her where the money was and she kept quiet. I was sitting on top of her at this stage. I was holding her hands. I asked her again and she remained quiet. Then I throttled her. After I had throttled her, I had sexual intercourse with her. She held onto my body while I was lying on top of her. I then throttled her. She was stronger than I. She held onto my clothes. I hit her with my fists.
I had a rope in my pocket. I took it out and tied it around her neck. I let go of her for a while and she took a deep breath. She screamed. When I heard her screaming, I pulled the rope tighter. At t
his stage I put my foot on her and pulled the rope tighter. I then noticed that she had no strength left and her hands became limp. I pulled her under the bed. I lowered the blankets on the bed to the floor so that she could not be seen.
I then searched the wardrobe and removed some clothing that I put on the floor. There were jackets and dresses. I found a firearm in a pillowcase. There were two firearms; a big one and a small one. I planned to sell them but decided against that. I put the big one aside under the mattress. I took the small firearm to another room and put it under a pillow. I turned the television on. At that stage I made some porridge. I slaughtered a fowl and cooked it. I then watched some television.
I went to pack some clothing in a suitcase. While I was busy doing that, the dog barked and I went outside. I fed the dog. I went to the car as I wanted to drive it. I started it. The car could only go forward and I decided not to drive it because I would be arrested. I went to the other car and opened the hood. The battery was present but a certain wire had been cut. I looked for some wire and repaired the connection. I tried to start the car but it would not start. I then left it.
I went back into the house. I took the wheelbarrow and loaded the woman in it and went and buried her. I took the television set and went to sell it. I also sold the clothing at Tembisa. After selling these items, I went back to the house. I took some suitcases and sold them at Bredell. I stayed at the house the whole Saturday. I left early on the Sunday morning. In the afternoon I saw a car and returned. When I saw the car I ran away.
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