Murder accused’s letter to parents
DAYS after one of Hannah Cornelius’s alleged killers was arrested, he penned a letter addressed to her parents, begging for forgiveness.
“I am sorry for what I did. I wish you can forgive me for what I have done,” Eben van Niekerk wrote.
In the letter, admitted as evidence, Van Niekerk explained to Cornelius’s parents that he had wanted to help her. He wrote he was too fearful at the time.
“I was also afraid of them. Please do not be upset with me,” he ended the note, with his signature at the bottom.
Cornelius, 21, and her friend Cheslin Marsh were hijacked while in her blue Citi Golf parked at the corner of Jan Cilliers and Bird Street in Stellenbosch. The pair were kidnapped and Cornelius was found dead a few hours later close to a wine farm in Stellenbosch on May 27 last year.
Marsh was assaulted and dumped in bushes in Kraaifontein.
Van Niekerk, Vernon Witbooi, Geraldo Parsons and Nashville Julius are on trial for rape, murder, attempted murder and assault.
Van Niekerk testified in a trialwithin-a-trial on the admissibility of the letter.
He told the court he was instructed to write the apology letter by Stellenbosch police station detective Stephan Adams, who drove him to Victoria Hospital for examination and DNA sample extractions.
Van Niekerk said on their way back to Stellenbosch, Adams had told him to write the letter.
He claimed Adams also scared him by telling him he was supposed to take him back to Pollsmoor Prison that day, but it was too late.
“He said I must say I’m sorry. He said this letter would make things easier, so I took the pen and paper,” said Van Niekerk.
State witness and police officer Abongile Mputumi told the court he was in the car that day. The news had played on the radio announcing the arrest of another accused in the case.
“The accused (Van Niekerk) asked Adams if he was in the k*k. He then asked for a pen and paper and Adams didn’t give it to him then,” Mputumi said.
He added that he wasn’t sure if Adams gave him the pen and paper when Van Niekerk was in the holding cells.
Ncumisa Qwina, a woman who was allegedly chased and robbed by Van Niekerk and Witbooi, identified her attackers in court.
Qwina was alleged to have been robbed by the accused, who were in Cornelius’s Citi Golf in Northpine just a few hours after the murder. She escaped the attack but her bag with her cellphone, money and cards was taken.
The State concluded its case yesterday. The trial continues today.