The 18-year-old drug addict Schalk du Plooy, who murdered his parents on 6 December 2010, claimed in court that his mother had told him before the incident that she regretted adopting him.
Du Plooy was found guilty in the Delmas Circuit Court in 2011 of killing pharmacists Schalk (52) and Theresa du Plooy (51) in their Dunnottar home.
Judge Fritz Brand said he was disgusted on how the adopted son murdered his parents and rejected Du Plooy’s appeal in the Supreme Court in Bloemfontein on November 28.
Brand said the violations he was found guilty of, is of such an extent that imprisonment cannot be avoided.
“The ruthless manner in which he murdered two people who loved and nurtured him since he was five years old and treated him as their own child, fills me with revulsion”, Brand said.
According to Brand it reduces the fact that Schalk (senior) and Theresa were less perfect parents and not the brutality of the murder.
“Few parents are perfect. The mistakes they made during his childhood years does not justify the brutal attack on them”, Brand stated.
Du Plooy and co-accused Morné Labuschagne (23) were friends and accused of beating Du Plooy’s parents with a cricket bat and stabbing them 24 times with a kitchen knife.
Labuschagne helped Du Plooy to wrap the bodies in a blanket, put them in the family’s Land Rover and to throw the bodies in bushes near a golf course in Brakpan. They also tried to clean the house.
Labuschagne was found guilty of being an accessory to the murders and received a six year sentence.
According to Du Plooy he received a sentence for a murder his parents instigated.
