Inmates celebrate Lotter’s wedding
THE wedding of Nicolette Lotter, who is serving a 12-year sentence for the murder of her parents in 2008, was celebrated by her fellow inmates.
Lotter exchanged vows at Westville Prison with a man she shared a short relationship with this month.
Former Independent Media journalist Vivian Attwood, who walked Lotter down the aisle in a ceremony attended by close supporters and friends of the couple, said yesterday that only eight people were allowed to attend the ceremony in the prison’s chapel, and she acted as a “de-facto mother” to Lotter.
“The people who attended are big supporters of hers who visit her regularly. A couple of people were from the church her (Lotter’s) parents attended,” Attwood said.
Although not revealing too much about Lotter and her groom, Rian Nortjé, Attwood said the “most spectacular” part of the day was the active participation by all the other female prisoners.
Lotter, 36, is halfway through the 12-year prison sentence she is serving after she, her then boyfriend Mathew Naidoo and her brother Hardus were found guilty of stabbing and strangling Maria Magdalena “Riekie” and Johannes Petrus “Johnny” in their Westville home.
According to the Lotter siblings, they acted under the instructions of Naidoo, who claimed to be the third son of God.
Attwood said that the night before the wedding, the other female prisoners gathered outside Lotter’s cell and sang and danced for her in celebration of her big day.
“She joined them and danced with them from behind the bars of her cell,” Attwood said. She added that on the day of the wedding, prisoners broke some branches of a jacaranda tree in the prison yard and lined the walkway from Lotter’s cell to the chapel with the flowers.
“As she came down the barred walkway, all the prisoners cheered and sang for her… It was like, for one day, everyone felt free,” Attwood said.
Lotter’s brother Hardus, who is on parole, did not attend the wedding.