Calls for life sentence for ‘barbaric’ J-Bay murder
Describing their actions as barbaric, a prosecutor said the two men who murdered an elderly Jeffreys Bay man had shown an absolute disregard for human life.
Therefore, they deserved nothing less than to serve the rest of their lives in prison.
“No human being would tie down an animal with those injuries ... using blunt force would have been an easier way to die,” state advocate Marius Stander told the high court in Gqeberha.
Lunga Welkom and Masixolo Mbeki, both 29, had pleaded guilty in December to the murder of Johannes Marx, 79, as well as to charges of housebreaking with intent to rob, robbery with aggravating circumstances, kidnapping, fraud and money laundering.
In their plea, they claimed they had acted out of the need for survival.
Marx, the father of wellknown Gqeberha specialist prosecutor Zelda Swanepoel, had been beaten, bound to a chair, had clothing stuffed in his mouth, a plastic packet tied over his head and had blankets thrown over him.
Marx, who according to Swanepoel suffered from claustrophobia, suffocated to death before Welkom and Mbeki used his bank cards and racked up an almost R23,000 bill through drawing money at various ATMs, buying alcohol, clothing and even electronic goods around Jeffreys Bay, Humansdorp and Gqeberha on the same day they committed the crimes.
They were arrested two days later.
Stander said it was clear from the onset that there was a strategy to kill Marx and that they had wanted him to suffer as much as possible.
“This assault was clearly over a period of time, [Welkom and Mbeki] had the opportunity to walk away but they didn’t, they watched Marx suffer.
“After seeing all that pain and suffering, they still took the time to eat biltong and drink beer,” Stander said.
He said the two were meticulous in their planning of the offences to such an extent that after they attacked Marx in his garage they continued to assault him in the lounge.
When they noticed blood in the lounge, they went to the trouble of hiding it by throwing a carpet over it so that noone would see it should they look through the lounge window.
Though the two pleaded guilty to the charges, they had still not shown remorse, Stander said.
“Why did they kill [Marx]? Was it because of who he was, what he had or for pure hate?”
Defence advocate Johan van der Spuy said there was no evidence that they had planned the murder.
“There was no direct intent to kill [Marx] but it was foreseeable that he would die.
“It was a stupid decision to put something in his mouth to keep him quiet,” Van der Spuy said.
He asked the court not to sentence the men out of anger or based on emotions, but to also consider their backgrounds.
The men will be sentenced on April 15.