“Come quickly, we have been shot” were the last words a grieving daughter ever heard her mother say – a call nothing could have prepared her for.
Arguing in aggravation of sentence of the three Winterveldt men who killed an elderly couple in a busy street in Soshanguve in 2011 only to rob them of R3,50 and a toy gun, prosecutor Celeste Smit read out a letter written by the daughter of the deceased, Belinda Jooste.
“Our whole life changed at that single moment. I had to break the news to my son that both his grandparents had been murdered. It changed him completely and he went from an A student to someone who hardly passes his grades,” Belinda Jooste wrote, adding that her son was still receiving counselling.
“The senseless actions of the murderers took from us two people who still had so much to offer,” she wrote.
Victor Simango, 31, Solomon Selekane, 25 and the 28-year old Collen Molapo were earlier found guilty of murdering Christiaan Jooste and his wife Catherine by shooting them during an armed robbery in broad daylight while witnesses looked on.
The three murderers were also convicted on a count of robbery with aggravating circumstances and one of unlawfully being in possession of firearms and ammunition. In addition, Simango was found guilty of another charge of aggravated robbery for robbing the same couple in a separate incident 16 days before their 17 November murder.
A fourth accused, Nkomo Mathebula, had his trial separated from that of the three murderers after escaping from police custody earlier this year by allegedly bribing a policeman. Mathebula is still on the run and is currently on the police’s top 10 most wanted criminals in the country.
In her judgement, presiding Judge Lettie Malopa said the testimony given by the three killers had been “fabrications and lies.”
“The various versions given by the accused of what had happened that day could not reasonably or possibly be true,” the judge said, adding that all the accused had acted with a common purpose to rob and murder the Joostes.
The couple was in Soshanguve to deliver sausages to a spaza shop in Block R when they were shot.
Christiaan was hit in his stomach while walking back from the shop while his wife were shot in the chest when she tried to defend herself by praying her attackers with pepper spray. The couple, both in their 60s, were declared dead at arrival at the hospital.
Smit argued that the killers showed no remorse for their actions and only felt sorry because they had been caught. She asked for a life sentence on each murder count.
“They showed no mercy and had no respect for other people’s property,” she argued.
The defence council however argued in mitigation that all three the murderers were feeling great remorse and wanted to apologise for their actions.
The court heard that Simango had not pulled the trigger of the weapon that killed the Joostes and no evidence was given that he had taken any of the deceased’s belongings. He therefore did not deserve a life sentence, it was argued.
In the case of Selekane, it was argued that he had showed remorse and even cried during his testimony. He was also not aware that the co-accused had been in possession of firearms on the day of the murders.
“The fact that he was there on the scene of the murder that day was the work of the devil,” it was argued.
The court heard that Malapo was HIV positive, a first offender and felt true remorse and should not serve a sentence longer than 20 years imprisonment.
Judge Malopa will sentence the three double murderers on Wednesday 11 March.
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