Sexual intrigue, murder in Bay’s leafy suburbia
Sex on the bonnet of a BMW, indecent behaviour in a helicopter, lies, jealousy and the murder of a popular lawyer saw the Port Elizabeth public hanging onto every word of the Merwe Swart murder case in the late 90s, writes Angela Daniels
WHEN popular rugby administrator and lawyer Merwe Swart was gunned down on an overcast morning in August 1996, no one was prepared for the salacious court case that followed.
So shocking were the tales of sex, premature ejaculation, lies and jealousy, that the Port Elizabeth High Court became a place where curious onlookers went over lunch breaks and where housewives camped out, riveted by proceedings.
Initially when Swart, 33, was shot in the neck while sitting in a bakkie in the driveway of his up-market Walmer home, rumours abounded that it was in fact his good friend, controversial businessman Michau Huisaman, who was the target.
Huisamen, who later faced drug trafficking charges abroad, owned security company Armsec and had previously owned the home the Swarts lived in.
Tongues in the little farming town of Kirkwood were however also wagging and those rumours were on the money.
Many there were questioning whether Fanie de Lange, 32, the playboy boyfriend of Merwe’s pretty blonde, teacher wife Amor, 32, was involved. The affair, an “open secret” in the town where Swart, Amor and De Lange, a farmer, grew up, had led to tension in the Swarts’ marriage and bad blood between Swart and De Lange.
After weeks of investigation, during which time police received hundreds of tips about the illicit affair, De Lange cracked under interrogation and admitted he had hired three men to beat up Swart.
He, however, vehemently denied that he had intended Swart to be shot and killed.
And so started a trial that saw members of the public sitting on the courtroom floor when the benches were full, audibly gasping as shocking secrets spilled out.
In what was described as Port Elizabeth’s very own soap opera, the public heard about sexcapades on the “hot bonnet of a BMW”, how Amor fondled De Lange during a helicopter ride, and trysts in a deserted churchyard.
The couple, who had dated as teenagers at school, had by all accounts remained obsessed with each other and it was only when the Swarts decided to try for a second baby that Amor broke off the passionate affair. It was when the affair ended that De Lange hatched his plan to send assailants to Swart’s home.
For many the most gripping aspects of the case centred around the obsessive love affair between De Lange and Amor.
When Amor, who gave birth to a baby girl three months after the murder, told the court that she had never had “full sex with Fanie” as he suffered from a premature ejaculation problem, the courtroom erupted in laughter – and De Lange earned the nickname “Vinnige Fanie” (Fast Fanie).
And while many revelled in the society couple’s high jinx, the heartbroken Swart family were left to deal with the death of a much-loved son and brother.
For months the story played out in the media with Nopi Wilson Conini, one of De Lange’s co-accused who had turned state witness, saying De Lange had offered each man R20 000 to get rid of the man “who is a shadow in my life”.
The judge however rejected Conini’s claims De Lange had intended to have Swart killed and De Lange was found guilty of culpable homicide - and sentenced to seven years in jail. A sentence he appealed, an appeal he lost.
During the trial De Lange married another blonde, this time a woman 10 years his junior. Amor started dating and every move she made was documented, talked about and dissected by a hungry public that could not get enough of her.
Even jail could not stop De Lange from making headlines.
He exposed drug deals, saved a prisoner who was stabbed and, in 2001, convinced a female psychologist to fast-track his parole attempts. This failed, the woman was suspended, and De Lange was released in October 2002 after serving three years and five months in jail.