Paying to get rid of problems in their lives

Millionaire businessman Nico Henning, 47, is expected to stand trial in June for allegedly being the mastermind behind the murder of his estranged wife, Chanelle, 26, who was shot after dropping off the couple’s four-year-old son at a Pretoria crèche in 2011.

Henning’s former close friend, Andre Gouws, claimed he offered him money to have Chanelle killed so that he could gain custody of their son.

In 2011, the High Court in Johannesburg sentenced Mulalo Sivhidzho, 33, to life imprisonment plus eight years for hiring hit men to kill her husband of six months, Avhatakali Netshisaulu, 31, the son of former City Press editor Mathatha Tsedu.

In November 2010, 47year-old doctor’s wife Manda Reyneke was arrested for conspiring to murder her toy-boy lover, current Golden Lions rugby player Deon Helberg, 24. Reyneke hired two Nigerian hit men to kill Helberg, but they had second thoughts and told the police. Reyneke was apprehended in a sting operation after she had handed the hit men R10 000.

She pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit murder and was sentenced in 2011 to three years’ imprisonment, suspended for five years, and community service.

In 2006, singer, producer and composer Taliep Petersen was shot dead in his home in what appeared to be a robbery. Six months later, his wife, Najwa, was arrested with accomplices. She is serving a 28-year sentence after being convicted of orchestrating his murder.

In September 2005, mining magnate Brett Kebble was found shot dead in his car in Melrose, Johannesburg, in what was later dubbed an “assisted suicide”. Three hit men claimed Kebble was in financial straits and wanted a way out.

In a murder that rocked the country, known as the Baby Jordan case, 24-yearold Capetonian Dina Rodrigues hired four men in 2005 to kill her lover Neil Wilson’s six-month-old baby with another woman. She paid the men R10 000. She and two of the hit men were sentenced to life imprisonment in 2007 and the other two hit men, who were teenagers at the time, were jailed for 15 years.

In a 2013 confession, Rodrigues claimed she became obsessed with eliminating baby Jordan.— Nomahlubi Jordaan