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20100609

Tortured farm women’s gardener guilty

 

“Most cruel, violent crimes I’d ever seen while on the Bench…’ said High Court judge S.P.B. Hancke

2010-06-09 Welkom, Free State. The gardener of the two  unarmed, frail Boer women who were tortured to death  on March 6 2009 was found guilty of their extremely cruel murders. The trial left many questions unanswered: why the women were tortured to death over a three-hour period; why the slogan “Kill the Boer’ was daubed on the farm house wall; why so little of value was ‘robbed’.

High Court judge S.P.B. Hancke ruled that it was proven beyond any reasonable doubt that gardener Joseph Hlongwane, 22, had tortured to death the elderly, unarmed Helen Lotter and her daughter Alice , 57, on March 6 2009. No explanation was given by the gardener as to why he had displayed such extreme cruelty, carrying out at least three hours of torture. He will be sentenced on Wednesday 9 June 2010.

Helen Lotter, 57,  died of the repeated, very severe sharp trauma injuries to her lower body
Lotter Helen 57 slaughtered with mom Alice 
March62010 FreeStateFarm

The frail, unarmed mother, Mrs Alice Lotter (76) died from multiple, deep stabbing wounds to her neck and throat on the night of 6 March 2009; her daughter Helen, left, succumbed to  'severe, repeated, sharp trauma injuries to her lower body administered with knives and a broken beer bottle.' A post-mortem examination by Dr Horst Bumba described that all of Helen’s front teeth were bashed out and that her entire body and face were ‘covered in severe bruises, chafing and stabbing wounds.’

Broken beer bottle: Hlongwane’s preferred murder weapon?

Hlongwane was also found guilty of murdering Allanridge resident Bongani Landu on 2 November 2007. Apparently broken beer-bottles were Hlongwane's choice of weapon: he'd stabbed Landu to death with a broken beer bottle - and tortured Helen Lotter to death by stabbing her repeatedly into the vagina and anus with a broken beer bottle. She was tortured so extensively that her womb 'was completely missing', and 'slabs of human fat the size of a man's hand were sliced off her body', according to the post-mortum examiner’s testimony.


The convicted murderer's  legal counsel, advocate Jan Nkhahle, submitted extinuating circumstances: Hlongwane is a single man with a little daughter, and also was “very young” at the time of the murders. "He completed his matric in 2005 and started medical studies but had to break them off because of financial problems,' he said.

‘The sounds my sister made at the hospital will haunt me all my life…’

Volksblad journalist Corne van Zyl also quoted Mrs Antoinette Horn, t

he daughter and sister of the murdered women and who had attended the trial throughout. She said that 'the sounds which my sister made while they offloaded her from the ambulance at the hospital, will haunt me all my life. It's however a chapter one must try and close so that one can get on with one's life. Nothing is going to bring back my mother and sister.'

“It would have been easy to just tie these unarmed women up to rob them…’

Just like the state witnesses had said during the trial, both the State counsel advocate Sophie Giorgi and judge Hancke also expressed deep shock about the extreme cruelty displayed by Hlongwane – especially towards his victim Alice Lotter.

  • Barbaric, gruesome…
  • "In my 25 years on the Bench this is the first time I have ever heard reports  about a person murdered from the sharp trauma and injuries administered to her lower body. I can't do anything else except to describe these murders as barbaric and gruesome,' said Giorgi. She also submitted that the murderer should be sentenced to a lifetime in prison without any extinuating factors. "The court should also take into consideration the fact that the Lotter women were both unarmed, frail women. "It would have been easy to just tie them up and rob them without having to use any violence,' said Giorgi.

Judge Hancke also said this was the first time in his long career that he had ever come across such violence. "It seems to me as if the murders are carried out in a more gruesome and violent manner than before,' he said. Hlongwane also was found guilty of murdering Allanridge resident Bongani Landu on 2 November 2007 – he had stabbed him to death with a broken beer-bottle… 
http://www.volksblad.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Tuinier-skuldig-aan-2-se-dood-20100609

Boer woman’s womb was carved from her body with a broken beer-bottle…
The unmarried 57-year-old farm woman Miss Helen Lotter was stabbed repeatedly with a broken beer-bottle – so fiercely and deeply that her sexual organs internally and externally were extensively mutilated – and her  cervix and uterus were completey missing: ’ testimony by coroner:
2010-06-03 Tom de Wet VIRGINIA. – The gruesome cruelties suffered by the murdered Miss Helen Lotter, 57, and her mother Alice became very clear when coroner Dr Horst Bumba’s report to the Welkom High Court showed that Helen Lotter’s cervix and uterus were ‘missing’ and that her death was caused by ‘sharp trauma and injuries to her lower body’ incurred during the attack against the two Afrikaner women in their Allenridge, Free State farm house on March 6 2010.

Dr Horst Bumba’s report also described that all her front teeth were bashed out and that her entire body was ‘covered in bruises, chafing and stabbing wounds. Her sexual parts were mutilated extensively also internally. Dr Bomba was unable to find the unmarried Afrikaans woman’s uterus or cervix (womb). He described these extreme injuries as 'having been caused by very clear penetration with a sharp object’.  Due to the extreme injuries, Dr Bumba was unable to determine whether she had been raped

Another report by medical examiner Dr Wilhelm van Heusden of the mother Alice, 76, concluded that the old farm woman had died due to ‘asphyxiation after breathing in blood from penetrating stabbing wounds in her neck and throat’.

Gardener ‘s claim that he was forced to sign a confession rejected by the Bench:

A ‘trial-within-a-trial’ was also held by Judge S.P.B. Hancke, assisted by two assessors, to determine the admissability of a conflicting signed and sworn confession by the one of the two accused black men who are on trial for murdering the women; their gardener, Joseph Hlongwane (22) and Joseph Khumalo (21). Judge Hancke examined all the statements submitted to the court by Hlongwane, including his claims that he had been ‘threatened, forced and dictated’ by the police to submit this confession.

However the Bench ruled that Hlongwane had  submitted the signed confession ‘from his own free will’ and that he himself had moreover, provided detailed descriptions of the way in which the attack on the Lotter women had been carried out, including what he’d taken away from their homestead.” The Bench ruled the gardener’s confession legally-admissable after examining all the statements by Wesselsbron magistrate J A Smith, SAPS captain Francois Laux; warrant-officer James Mahlatsi, the investigating officer, and Captain André Niemann.

“I’d stabbed her twice in the neck because she owed me money…’

Hlongwane  claimed in his confession, ruled admissable by the Bench, that he had ‘stabbed Mrs Alice Lotter twice with a pair of scissors in the neck because she owed me money”, after she had refused to pay him. Before the murders he’d gotten himself drunk at a local shebeen with his comrade Joseph Khumalo, they had returned to the farm and he had gone inside the farm house to argue with Mrs Lotter. He had submitted this statement to magistrate Smith in Wesselsbron three days after the double-murder.

However this  contradicts the old mother’s dying statement to Captain Koos Venter, the police officer who had found the mortally-wounded mother and daughter.

  • Her “death-bed confession’  was that the gardener had broken into their homestead  by crashing through a window and that he had ‘hurt “ both  women after the mother had spotted ‘a group of men standing outside at their bakkie and had warned them to go away or she’d phone the police’. Mrs Lotter told Captain Venter and an attending paramedic that she had recognised their gardener when he was climbing through the window. (The forensic evidence before the court earlier was that the window had broken into from the outside).   http://www.volksblad.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Wreedaardigheid-van-moorde-blyk-uit-verslae-20100603

Just before she died,  the mortally-wounded Alice had told investigating SAPS captain Koos Venter that the women  were tortured by their gardener, Joseph (Hlongwane, 22) – and had pointed  the policeman to the worker’s personal details which she kept inside her passport, which made it very easy for them to arrest the man shortly thereafter.  Hlongwane was also directly linked to the murders of the two frail women by fingerprints lifted from the crime-scene by forensic experts, the court heard.

The mother’s last words to the Afrikaner policeman were “Thank the Lord that you care for us and that we can hide with you…’’ Alice Lotter died shortly after her arrival at hospital, her daughter Helen died several days later.  Hlongwane, 22 and his co-accused Joseph Khumalo, 21 had denied all the charges.

The torture/murders caused  deep anger throughout the Afrikaner/Boer community.  Information submitted by police members to the news media shortly after the murder also was that the words ‘Kill the Boer’ had  alsobeen daubed in the women’s blood on the farmhouse walls. However while crime-scene photographs were submitted, this aspect – providing a very clear political motive – was not raised during the trial: Hlongwane was not put on the witness stand for cross-examination.

GRAPHIC RE-ENACTMENT OF THE TORTURE-MURDERS AT ODENDAALSRUST LAW COURT

LotterWomenTortureMurdersMarch62009OdendaalsrustProtestApril172009Picture above – Re-enactment of Lotter women’s tortuous deaths during protests at law court. Shortly before he was also murdered in April 2010 - hacked to death so brutally that he was unrecognisable and his limbs were nearly severed - Ventersdorp farmer Eugene Terre’Blanche, leader of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB),  also referred to the extreme cruelty of the Lotter women’s torture-murders in media interviews.  Terre’Blanche had also led peaceful protest actions at the Odendaalsrust law courts when the suspects made their first remand appearances in April last year.

The Boer protestors (pictured above) also demanded that the murderers be hanged – and had also carried out graphic re-enactments depicting the exact way in which the Lotter women had been put to death –  scenes which shocked many onlookers and caused indignation in the news media.

Shortly before he was murdered a year later  - hacked to death so brutally that he was unrecognisable --  ailing Ventersdorp farmer Eugene Terre’Blanche, leader of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB),  also often referred to the extreme cruelty of the Lotter women’s torture-murders in media interviews. Terre’Blanche had led the peaceful protest actions at the Odendaalsrust law courts when the suspects had made their first remand appearances and applied for bail in April 2009. The Boer protestors carried out a graphic re-enactment of the way in which the Lotter women had been put to death and also demanded the return of the death sentence for such cruel race-hate crimes.. Their reenactment was so graphic that it had shocked many onlookers and caused outrage in the Afrikaans-language news media.

ANC-MAYOR MRS MATABA LEETO ALSO LED A COUNTER-PROTEST

The  local ANC-mayor also organised a counter-protest with local ANC-cadres at the same time: but the Boer and ANC protestors did not clash: they were kept seperated by a large police force which was being ordered around by the ANC-mayor, who told the Boers that their protest was ‘illegal’.

The two groups then stood side-by-side on the curb opposite the law court, loudly trying to outdo each other in singing their respective national anthems in their own languages… as can be seen on the picture below: the ANC contingent can be seen in the background, the Boers in front.  http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/04/odendaalsrust-law-court-scene-of-angry.html

LotterWomenMurdersMar62009OdendaalsrustCourtProtestsANC_for_Murderers_Boers_Against

Odendaalsrust magistrate’s court April 2009:   – the ANC counter-protest group in the rear middle of this photograph, dressed in green and yellow, was headed by local ANC-mayor Mrs Mataba Leeto in the background;  the Boer protestors in front objected against the suspects getting bail  http://censorbugbear-reports.blogspot.com/2009/04/odendaalsrust-law-court-scene-of-angry.html

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“Captain where are you?’

Captain Koos Venter, head of the detective unit at Allanridge, testified  that he had received a call from Mrs Alice Lotter on the evening of March 6 2009. She ‘d asked him: “Captain where are you?” in Afrikaans – and then the line went dead. He was unable to call her back, so he jumped into his car and chased from his home in Odendaalsrus to the Allanridge farm. At the backdoor of the homestead he found a ‘very badly injured Miss Helen Lotter.’ Her face was coated in blood, some of her teeth had been smashed out, she wore a bloodied t-shirt and her naked underbody was covered in blood. A bloodied knife and scissors were found at the scene as well as bloodied beer-glas shards lying near the daughter’s legs.  He found the mother Ieaning against a dining-room chair, just about to fall over. He gently helped her lie down on the carpet of the living room. She asked him: “Who are you?” while he examined the ‘gaping wounds at her throat, arms and hands,’ he told the court.

  • He told the mortally-injured old woman that he was Captain Venter, and then she told the Afrikaner police man “Thank the Lord that you care for us and that we can hide with you…’

Venter briefly searched the house and came across the women’s two dogs, locked into a room. He then rushed back to the women and tried to make them more comfortable while waiting for the emergency service he’d alerted, to arrive. While doing this Mrs Alice Lotter told him that it was Joseph, the gardener, who had ‘hurt them’. She also told Captain Venter that Joseph’s personal details were kept inside her passport, which was on the dining table. She didn’t speak anything else after that and died shortly thereafter at the hospital.

Venter testified that he had 31 years of police service behind him – and that this was the bloodiest and cruellest crime scene he had ever seen.  Hlongwane was also linked to the murder by finger-prints found at the crime-scene by forensic experts, reported Volksblad. 

The public prosecutor in this case is Advocate Sophie Giorgi, the defence counsellors are Advocate Jan Nkhahle and Mr. Lawrence Chabalala (sp?). Judge Hancke is assisted on the Bench by two Assessors,: Mr P Haasbroek and Mrs B Smal. Sentencing of the convicted gardener is expected shortly at the Welkom High Court. http://www.volksblad.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Bejaarde-se-gebed-laaste-woorde-voor-dood-20100601

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