Two life terms for killing her sons
CRIME ‘GOES AGAINST GRAIN OF NATURE’ Rejects that domineering mom acted out of diminished responsibility.
APretoria mother and her psychiatrist husband yesterday hugged each other tightly, after she was sentenced to two life terms for the premeditated murder of their two young sons.
Psychiatrist Dr Mazelle Matjane earlier told the court he had forgiven his wife Rehithile Matjane, 36, for murdering their sons Alvaro, two, and Keyon’dre, six, who both died after their mother in April 2015 drove to a deserted spot in Hammanskraal and shot both boys in the head.
Matjane admitted shooting her sons but blamed the murders on the medication she took at the time and her depression and suicidal thoughts.
Judge Hans Fabricius rejected Matjane’s claims that she had acted with diminished responsibility. He said the picture of horror that the children must have felt was difficult to erase from one’s mind.
“It goes against the grain of humanity for a mother to kill her children. Simply by overview of nature as a whole, one will notice that it is the mother who will nurture and protect her children, often against overwhelming odds, and will defend them, if necessary with her own life.
“It goes completely against nature for a mother to kill [her children] for almost any conceivable reason, let alone a reason that selfishly only relates to the quality of her marriage or the lack of such quality,” the judge said.
Fabricius said Matjane had told the police on the scene what her reason was, namely that she feared her husband would leave her and give the children to another woman.
She implied at the time that if she could not have the children, no one else would have them.
The judge said even the most experienced, compassionate judge would have a grave difficulty in comprehending such a crime.
“The facts speak of a degree of callousness that is difficult to imagine. The youngest child was shot [in the head] while sitting in the front seat of the vehicle. The elder must have seen this.
“He was shot outside the car. On the evidence, it’s clear that he was trying to avoid the execution by raising his arm. The second shot [into his head] was then fired.
“The children here were obviously vulnerable and completely defenceless.
“The world of the eldest child must have collapsed before him within moments when he saw his mother standing in front of him with a firearm, after she had killed his younger brother,” said Fabricius. –
The children were completely vulnerable, defenceless