Wiggill confided in me, says businessman’s alleged killer
“JEFF said I made him feel like a real woman.” This is how Thulani Cele, the man accused of killing businessman Jeff Wiggill, described the relationship the couple had in the weeks before his death.
Wiggill, the chairman of First Tech, a steel fabrication and construction conglomerate under liquidation, was shot near Soweto on June 19.
Wiggill’s body, dressed in a red-and-white checked shirt under a green sleeveless jersey, was slumped in his R3.1-million Bentley. He was killed two days before First Tech, with debts of about R4-billion, filed for business rescue. Since then, evidence of monumental and endemic fraud has started to unfold, with the blame being laid on Wiggill, who apparently managed the company finances single-handedly.
The Sunday Times met Cele and his lawyer, City Seokane, this week. Cele maintained that he had not killed his “friend” and that their relationship had been platonic.
Wiggill was secretive about his company’s implosion, and even his romantic partner, Alex Dicks, had no idea what was going on at First Tech. The one person whom he did tell about the fraud and his fear of going to jail was Cele.
They met 11 years ago, months after Cele had ended a six-year jail sentence for armed robbery. Wiggill got him a job working on the Medupi power station. But three weeks before his death, as the looming collapse of First Tech became evident, Wiggill brought Cele back to Johannesburg and got him a job at First Tech at almost double his previous salary.
Wiggill, who lived in an R11.5million home with Dicks and their five adopted children, spent regular evenings with Cele, a man with limited education and a criminal record. According to Cele, they spent most of their time in Wiggill’s car or going to “the garage to fill up and get things from the shop”. He said sometimes they went for drinks in Melville, but he was unsure of the names of the bars.
Even if the relationship had been platonic, it had sexual undertones. In broken English, Cele described to the Sunday Times how Wiggill told him how much he enjoyed spending time with him.
“He said it was because I didn’t talk to him like he was a big man,” Cele said. He was comfortable with Wiggill’s sexuality, he said. “He never did anything [sexual to me].”
Cele said Wiggill was drunk when he picked him up on the evening he was killed. He said Wiggill kept talking about his financial problems and he was concerned when Wiggill said he was going to see associates about a mining business.
Because his driving was so “horrible”, Cele had asked to be dropped on the side of the road, from where he got a lift home. He said it was the last time he had seen his friend.
Cele is on bail of R10 000.