Friends blamed for son’s crime
BLUDGEON KILLING: HE HAS REMORSE, SAYS MOTHER
Killer’s helper gets 12 years for cellphone robbery that ended in murder.
The mother of a young Limpopo man who stood by as his friend bludgeoned a middle-aged man to death with a stone blamed his deeds on bad friends and wrong choices.
Dean Vermeulen, 21, was on Thursday sentenced in the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to 12 years imprisonment for helping his friend Ben Strydom to rob Francois le Grange, 51, of his car and cellphones two years ago.
Vermeulen was also charged with murdering Le Grange, but was acquitted on the charge because of a lack of credible evidence against him.
He maintained it had been Strydom’s plan to steal Le Grange’s car when he was asleep and said they had never planned to hurt or kill Le Grange. He insisted Strydom had acted on his own when he attacked Le Grange.
Strydom, who is serving a 15year prison sentence for the murder, earlier told the court how he had bludgeoned his victim to death with a stone during an argument.
Afterwards he washed the blood off his hands before he and Vermeulen drove away in his victim’s car, which was later sold in Mamelodi.
He said they had planned to steal Le Grange’s car while smoking dagga in a park that morning.
Le Grange had invited them over for coffee that day.
Vermeulen’s mother, Charmain Olivier, said her son had made a mistake and realised that he had contravened the country’s and God’s law.
“He knows he will have to say he’s sorry to his victim’s family and to God. He has made peace with the fact he has to pay for what he did.
“I think the wrong friends and the wrong choices led to this crime.
“He is a very soft-hearted child with a big heart who would give everything to others,” she said.
Olivier said her son was living with his father at the time, but was thrown out when he could not pay his rent because he was unemployed.
He went to stay with his mother after he was granted bail, managed to get a job and no longer used drugs or dagga, she said.