Facing life... love rat sergeant who sabotaged skydive wife’s parachute in 4,000ft horror fall
AN ARMY sergeant is facing life in jail after he was found guilty yesterday of trying to murder his wife by tampering with her parachute and sabotaging a gas valve at their home.
Emile Cilliers, 38, who was described as “very dangerous, coercive and manipulative”, will be sentenced next month.
His wife Victoria, 42, suffered near- fatal injuries when both her main and reserve parachutes failed as she took part in a jump in 2015.
She survived after landing in a ploughed fi eld.
The sex- mad defendant, who was debt ridden and had affairs with a string of women, showed no emotion as he was convicted unanimously on two counts of attempted murder.
Alerted
It was his second trial after the fi rst jury failed to reach a verdict.
During his trial, the prosecution at Winchester Crown Court told jurors how South Africanborn Cilliers wanted to kill his wife because of her £ 120,000 life insurance.
He fi rst tried to gas her at their home in Amesbury, Wiltshire, but the smell alerted her to the danger and she later jokingly texted him to say: “Are you trying to kill me?!”
He then hatched a plot to sabotage her parachute on the eve of a 4,000ft jump.
Cilliers, of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps, tangled her main canopy and removed vital links from her reserve in a toilet cubicle.
At the time the father of six, whom the prosecution called a “charmless, unfaithful, penniless scoundrel”, was in sexual relationships with Mrs Cilliers, his ex- wife Carly, and a third lover named Stefanie Goller whom he met on dating app Tinder. He had also contacted prostitutes about meeting up for unprotected sex.
The court heard of the extraordinary hold he had over the wife he wanted to murder.
During the two trials Mrs Cilliers gave contradictory evidence and became a “hostile witness” to the prosecution.
She even had to be warned not to meet her husband six months after he tried to kill her.
Speaking outside court, Detective Inspector Paul Franklin, of Wiltshire Police, described Cilliers as “cold and calculated” and a “very dangerous man”.
He said Cilliers could easily have escaped being caught for the attempts on his wife’s life at Netheravon airfi eld, Wiltshire.
DI Franklin added: “He tried very hard. It was due to due diligence of the staff at the Army Parachute Association who brought it to our attention but it could have passed off as an accident.”