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Cape Town - Sex workers rejoiced after former
motor mechanic Johannes Christiaan de Jager was sentenced to life
in jail for the “brutal and savage” murder of two teenagers.
Western Cape High Court acting Judge Chuma
Cossie on Tuesday handed down three life sentences to run
concurrently, finding there were no substantial and compelling
circumstances allowing her to deviate from prescribed minimum
sentences.
“This court has taken into account the personal
circumstances of the accused. However, it is in agreement with the
State that the accused has shown no signs of remorse during the
trial and during mitigation of sentence,” she said.
“It is also mindful of the fact that two young
lives were violated and such lives cannot be replaced.”
Outside court, members of the Sisonke sex
workers' movement ululated and jumped for joy at the sentences.
Some carried posters stating: “We demand justice” and
“Decriminalise sex work now”.
National Sisonke organiser Duduzile Dlamini
shouted that she was happy that they were also regarded as human.
She said many crimes had been committed against
her on the street but she had not reported them because of trouble
with police and the justice system.
“I've been in the industry many years. This one
(case) shows me that our voices are heard now and I'm going to
motivate my colleagues to go back and review their cases.”
De Jager, 49, was last month convicted of
killing and raping 18-year-old sex worker Hiltina Alexander in
2008 and killing 16-year-old Charmaine Mare last year. Both crimes
were committed in Cape Town.
Cossie handed down a life sentence each for the
rape and murder of Alexander.
He also received a life sentence for Mare's
murder.
Six years in jail were handed down for
dismembering Mare's corpse and three months for stealing her
cellphone.
De Jager, dressed in jeans, a checked shirt,
and blue jersey, smirked as the sentence was handed down. He
leaned against the dock in a relaxed manner and looked around at
the people in court.
Cossie said she agreed with counsel Sakkie
Maartens that his client was not a serial killer, as suggested by
State witness Brigadier Gerard Labuschagne during sentencing
arguments.
However, rape and murder were very serious
offences and needed to be punished in a way that would satisfy the
interests of society.
“This kind of brutality is regrettably too a
part of life in South Africa. Courts are expected to send out a
clear message that such behaviour will be met with the full force
and effect of the law,” she said.
“The legislature is concerned about this and so
too should we be.”
Cossie said she had kept in mind that alcohol
consumption had played a role in Alexander's murder, as suggested
by the defence.
However, this was one of many factors to
consider.
“Society expects that offenders such as this
one before court today should be punished for such offences and,
if possible, be totally removed from the community at large,” she
said.
With regards to Mare's murder, it was clear he
had abused the trust that the Mpumalanga resident had in him.
“Instead of helping the deceased look for work
as promised and take care of her while her friend and mother were
away, he used the opportunity to violate her and showed no remorse
by denying that he killed her, only admitting that he violated the
corpse and nothing further.” - Sapa
De Jager
refuses to admit murders
By Jenna Etheridge - Iol.co.za
May 22, 2014
Cape Town - Convicted killer Johannes
Christiaan de Jager maintained his innocence on Thursday when
called to convince the Western Cape High Court to give him a
lesser sentence.
Prosecutor Romay van Rooyen wanted him to admit
to raping and killing prostitute Hiltina Alexander, 18, in 2008
and killing 16-year-old Charmaine Mare last year.
Despite maintaining a frown, De Jager seemed
calm in the dock and stuck to his version that he did not commit
the crimes.
“So you can't tell the court you are sorry
(about Alexander) because you are saying you did not do it?” Van
Rooyen asked.
De Jager replied: “I am sorry she is dead but I
did not do it.”
Van Rooyen asked the same about Mare.
De Jager replied: “As I said, she is dead as a
result of me but it was an accident in the house.”
He added that he was not a danger to women
because he had never raped anyone.
When the State concluded questioning, he
stumbled out of the dock because of an injury to his leg.
In closing argument, his lawyer Sakkie Maartens
said it would have been in his client's favour to admit to the
crimes.
“It would have been first prize if Mr De Jager
today took the stand and made a U-turn and confessed his sins and
asked for mercy,” he said.
“He stands by his version. In this regard, I
want to submit that the court will be careful not to use the
absence of remorse as an aggravating factor.”
He said that the crimes against Alexander
attracted a minimum sentence of life imprisonment. However, since
his client was found guilty of the 2008 crimes at the same time as
Mare's crimes, it could not count as a previous conviction. Thus,
Mare's murder could not also attract a life sentence.
He then seemed to assist the State's argument
in admitting that murder and rape were the most serious offences.
“Life is sacrosanct and no ways is Hiltina's
life cheaper than the interpreter's,” he said.
“Society needs to get the message that
prostitutes or no prostitutes, 1/8women 3/8 must feel free to walk
the streets without forever being in fear that some evil-doer
might pounce on them.”
He asked the court to keep in mind that De
Jager was not “all evil” and had stayed out of trouble for a
lengthy period of his life.
The defence lawyer also ventured a guess that
the crimes were not premeditated but committed “in the heat of the
moment”.
“I implore the court to consider that despite
his callous conduct pertaining to Charmaine's body, that there is
something to save, salvage, and rehabilitate.”
De Jager admitted that he cut off Mare's arms
and legs and burned her torso.
Maartens reminded acting Judge Chuma Cossie
that courts should never punish in anger.
The lawyer said his client had asked him to
apply for observation at a psychiatric hospital despite not being
aware of any mental illness.
He had decided not to argue this point as he
could see no evidence that would assist him in this regard.
De
Jager’s partner stunned she never suspected him
By Fatima Schroeder - Iol.co.za
May 3, 2014
Cape Town - She paused for a moment, her eyes
welling up, as she thought about whether she would ever be able to
forgive him.
It was the first visible sign of emotion Carol
White had shown since she first sat down and started to describe
the ordeal she and her daughter endured 15 months ago.
She took a few seconds to compose herself
before saying: “I will never forgive him. She didn’t deserve it.”
It was the first time White has spoken publicly
about the inner turmoil she has experienced since the man she had
lived with for four years, Johannes de Jager, 49, was arrested for
murdering a girl of 16, Charmaine Mare, a friend of her daughter
Kristen who had moved in with the family after relocating from
Mpumalanga.
The decision to take Charmaine in was not an
easy one, she said yesterday.
But when she saw the dire circumstances in
which the girl was living, she wanted to try to offer her a better
life, and perhaps help see the teen’s artistic skills land her a
job as a tattoo designer.
Charmaine moved in earlier than expected,
ignoring White’s advice to travel to Cape Town only after she and
Kristen had returned from a pre-booked cruise.
She fitted in well with the family, secured a
job interview at a local supermarket, and even became good friends
with De Jager’s son and the neighbour’s daughter.
“She was a lovely girl,” White said, smiling as
she recalled their time together.
So when she and Kristen left on their cruise on
January 7 last year, she didn’t at all feel uneasy about leaving
Charmaine behind with De Jager.
“I would never have left her alone if I knew
what was going on,” she said. In fact, De Jager and the teenager
seemed happy when they went to the harbour to see them off.
The mother and daughter were not contactable on
the boat because they did not have cellphone reception.
Four days later, when the boat docked in Table
Bay harbour at 5.30am, messages Charmaine had sent them started to
pour in.
In the messages, she told them she was scared,
and that De Jager refused to leave her alone. They immediately
dialled her number and she answered the call, scared and reluctant
to speak to them because De Jager must have been with her, White
said.
But by the time they arrived at home in Windsor
Park, Kraaifontein, there was no sign of Charmaine.
De Jager told them she had left to buy
cigarettes, and had never returned.
When they confronted him with the messages
Charmaine had sent them, he denied doing anything to hurt her.
“You never expect a person to do that (kill
someone) … I thought that he tried to sleep with her and that she
ran away,” White said.
The police were alerted and for days they
searched for Charmaine.
De Jager was part of the search party and had
even gone to the police to report Charmaine missing, White said.
However, Kristen was sceptical and wouldn’t let
him near her mother.
On January 14, 2013 Charmaine’s dismembered
body was discovered, her torso charred.
“I still don’t believe it. It’s like I’m in a
nightmare and I’m waiting to wake up,” she said.
White described De Jager as well-liked.
While they had the odd petty domestic squabble,
he was never violent towards her, and gave her no reason to feel
unsafe.
Even when, in the heat of an argument, he told
her “if I can’t have you no one else will”, she didn’t make
anything of it because she didn’t think that he would hurt her,
she said.
Killing Charmaine was completely out of
character for De Jager, she said.
White said she often blamed herself for what
had happened, and wondered why she never noticed that the man she
fell in love with was capable of a cold-hearted killing.
“I was so naïve, so stupid,” she said angrily.
She hasn’t spoken to De Jager since his arrest.
This despite the fact he has tried to make
contact with her on several occasions to beg for her forgiveness.
But she refuses to accept his calls, and has
left her job of 18 years to move out of the city and start afresh.
“I was like a zombie. Have you ever felt that
you don’t want to live?”
This week De Jager was convicted of Mare’s
murder as well as the 2008 murder of 18-year-old Cape Town
prostitute Hiltina Alexander.
White still wonders what it was that drove him
to do the unthinkable. However, she will never ask what went
through his mind because she no longer trusts anything he says.
De Jager, now in Pollsmoor Prison, is expected
in court for sentencing on Monday.
‘Butcher’ guilty of killing
teens
By Natasha Prince - Iol.co.za
April 30, 2014
Cape Town - It is inconceivable that Johannes
Christiaan de Jager could plead guilty to dismembering the corpse
of 16-year-old Charmaine Mare and not have murdered the teenager,
says the Western Cape High Court judge who found him guilty of her
murder.
Acting Judge Chuma Cossie found that De Jager,
49, intended to kill Charmaine – evident from his efforts to burn
the body and conceal the evidence.
“The court was satisfied that that the State
succeeded in proving guilt of the accused beyond a reasonable
doubt in the case of murder,” she said on Tuesday.
Regarding the charges of violating a corpse,
Acting Judge Cossie said: “It is inconceivable as to how the
accused can plead guilty to this and not to murder.”
For Charmaine’s death, he was found guilty of
murder and two counts of violating a corpse and of theft – for
stealing her cellphone
Earlier in the day, he was also convicted of
raping and strangling 18-year-old Cape Town prostitute Hiltina
Alexander, who was found dead in May 2008.
De Jager had initially denied having anything
to do with Hiltina other than picking her up one night in May 2008
for a stranger.
He claimed he last saw her when she went to bed
with the stranger.
But the court rejected De Jager’s version of
events, finding that he could not give police a description of the
stranger and he could not identify the flat where he had last seen
her.
Acting Judge Cossie found him guilty of two
counts of rape and of murdering Hiltina.
Charmaine was introduced to De Jager when the
Mpumalanga teenager came to stay with her friend Kristen White.
Kristen lived with her mother, Carol White, who was De Jager’s
girlfriend, and De Jager’s son Nick.
Charmaine had been left alone with De Jager
while the family had gone on a pre-planned cruise, from January 7
to 11 last year.
When the family returned, Charmaine was
missing. The family then went to the police.
De Jager claimed that Charmaine died in an
accidental fall in his bathroom, and that in a panicked and
shocked state he had dismembered her body and set her torso
alight.
The State argued that he had fabricated the
story of the stranger and lied to the court, and accused him of
raping Charmaine and strangling her to prevent her from telling
anyone.
Prosecutor Romay van Rooyen claimed that De
Jager had tried to destroy forensic evidence.
A pathologist’s report said Charmaine had no
fatal head injuries and her death was due to an unknown unnatural
cause.
De Jager initially stored her body in a drain
on his property but decided to remove it.
A few days later, Charmaine’s torso was found
on an open field. Her lower legs and arms were found in separate
locations and were in a state of decomposition, but not burnt.
Acting Judge Cossie said De Jager had no regard
for the young girl’s body as during his testimony he referred to
her body as “it”.
“He showed no respect for the deceased even
after her death,” she said, adding that his actions were
inconsistent with those of an honest person.
“The explanation that was given to the court as
to why he set the body alight was that he wanted to get rid of the
body. That is very gruesome, to say the least, for a person who
had no intention to kill anyone.”
Sentencing proceedings were provisionally set
down for May 5, to determine availability of defence counsel.
On Tuesday, Carol and Kristen White also
attended proceedings. They sat in court alongside friends of
Charmaine’s family.
Ellen du Toit and Hester “Hanti” Venter said
they had raised Charmaine from the age of 3 to 10 in Kriel,
Mpumalanga.
They cried as they spoke of their relief that
the case was finally over. The pair had taken a bus from Kriel to
attend the judgment.
Du Toit was satisfied with the judgments. “I’m
relieved it’s finally over… may he have a very hard life in
prison,” she said.
De Jager trial: slain
prostitute hidden
By Jade Otto - Iol.co.za
November 19, 2013
Cape Town - Prostitute Hiltina Alexander’s body
was found lying face up, covered by leafy branches, in a secluded
area near the Frankdale informal settlement off the N7.
Captain Michael Volkwyn, who was stationed at
Philadelphia near Atlantis, told the Western Cape High Court he
was called after a passer-by found Alexander’s body.
She had been raped twice and murdered on May
18, 2008, allegedly by Ruyterwacht mechanic Johannes de Jager, who
is also on trial for the murder of Charmaine Mare, 16, in
Kraaifontein this year.
Volkwyn said he found forensic investigators
and a police photographer already combing the bushy area close to
a footpath that led to the informal settlement.
“Hiltina was clothed in camouflage pants that
were partially pulled down, and… a dark-coloured sleeveless top.
The body was covered entirely with dry branches. When the body was
turned over, I saw blood on the back of her head and on the grass
and soil,” said Volkwyn, the first of at least five investigating
officers who handled the case. He traced Alexander’s mother to
Elsies River and found her friends.
Colin Jacobs, the State’s first witness, was
instrumental in De Jager’s arrest on June 3, 2008.
He testified that he was with Alexander, 18,
shortly before she went missing and last saw her get into De
Jager’s white Ford bakkie. Two weeks later he saw the bakkie in
Epping Avenue and called Volkwyn, who arrested De Jager.
De Jager has admitted that he picked Alexander
up in his bakkie but said he dropped her at a flat in Parow for
another man known only as Johan. He denies raping and murdering
her.
Volkwyn had taken a warning statement from De
Jager a day after his arrest. “Because Hiltina was found in an
area where prostitution is a problem, I wanted to make sure if De
Jager was familiar with the area. That’s why I asked him
specifically of the turn-off to Van Schoorsdrift Road (near
Philadelphia), where he confirmed his brother stayed,” Volkwyn
said.
Evidence detailing the January 11 murder of
Charmaine has not yet been led in court. De Jager has denied
killing her but admitted that he dismembered her.
In his plea explanation, he said Charmaine must
have died after she slipped on a bath mat and hit her head against
the edge of the bath.
He panicked and “foolishly” hid her body in a
drain outside a house in Kraaifontein and later, to get her out,
cut off her limbs. Charmaine’s scorched torso was found in an
isolated field three days after the murder.
‘I cut up her body, but I
didn’t kill her’
By Jade Otto - Iol.co.za
November 14, 2013
Cape Town - Double murder accused Johannes de
Jager says his decision to dismember the body of Charmaine Mare,
16, was foolish.
While De Jager pleaded guilty to two counts of
defiling a corpse, he denied murdering Charmaine on January 11.
In a plea explanation, De Jager said she must
have died when she slipped on a bath mat and knocked her head
against the edge of the bath.
The trial into the murders of Charmaine and sex
worker Hiltina Alexander, 18, started in the Western Cape High
Court on Wednesday. De Jager, 48, of Ruyterwacht, pleaded not
guilty to murdering the teenagers, and raping Hiltina twice. He
also denied robbing Charmaine of her BlackBerry.
The prosecution rejected his plea.
De Jager also admitted he made sexual advances
towards Charmaine, who was in Kraaifontein on holiday from Kriel
in Mpumalanga.
Charmaine had come to Cape Town to visit her
friend, Kristen White, who lived with her mother, Carol, De Jager
and his son, Nick.
Carol White, Kristen and Nick went on a cruise
from January 7 to 11 while Charmaine remained in Kristen’s house
with De Jager.
De Jager said he was supposed to meet the
family at the V&A Waterfront at 9am on January 11 and told
Charmaine to get ready, but she was taking her time, which
frustrated him.
De Jager reversed his bakkie out of the garage
and when he returned he saw a fully dressed Charmaine sitting in
the bathroom with her cellphone.
“Seeing as she was delaying me and taking
unnecessarily long, I grabbed her right arm in the direction of
the bathroom door.
“She lost her balance and slipped on the
bathroom mat and knocked her head against the rim of the bath. She
was motionless,” De Jager said.
He tried unsuccessfully to revive her and then
realised she had “fatally injured herself during the fall”.
De Jager said he panicked and did not know what
to do. “I took a foolish decision to take her body and hide it in
a drain on our premises. She showed no signs of life and I
believed I placed a corpse in the drain.”
Two days later, De Jager removed Charmaine’s
body but the only way to get it out was to cut her limbs.
De Jager admitted he dumped Charmaine’s torso
in an open field in Kraaifontein and her legs on the N2 close to
Firgrove.
The first witness to testify on Wednesday was
Hiltina’s friend, Colin Jacobs, who identified De Jager as the
last person with whom he saw Hiltina alive.
Jacobs said that on May 18, 2008, around 10pm
he, his brother, McNeil, and Hiltina had left a bar in Parow and
were walking in Voortrekker Road when they spotted De Jager’s
white bakkie.
Hiltina whistled to get his attention and later
got into the bakkie. Jacobs and his brother waited for her but she
did not return.
De Jager’s defence is that he met a man, known
only as Johan, in a bar in Parow and they drank together. Johan
wanted a sex worker, so De Jager said he knew of someone and
fetched Hiltina. They went to Johan’s sister’s flat, also in Parow,
drank alcohol and smoked dagga together.
Later, De Jager left the flat. He said he never
had sex with Hiltina, despite her making advances to him.
Hiltina’s body was found in the bushes on the
N7 near the Frankdale informal settlement. She had been strangled
to death.
De Jager denies rape, murder of prostitute
By Jenna Etheridge - Iol.co.za
November 13, 2013
Cape Town - Johannes Christiaan de Jager
pleaded not guilty in the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday to
raping and killing an 18-year-old prostitute.
His lawyer Sakkie Maartens read out a document
explaining De Jager's position regarding the unlawful vaginal and
anal penetration of Hiltina Alexander, and her murder.
De Jager said he met a man called Johan at a
bar in Parow on the night of May 18, 2008.
They went back to Johan's sister's flat to
drink and Johan said he wanted to get a prostitute. De Jager
replied that he knew one.
He admitted picking up Alexander in Voortrekker
road, Parow, early on May 19, 2008, and taking her back to the
flat. He said Alexander fondled him while he drove.
He said both he and Johan were drunk.
“As a result, my memories about what happened
further were very weak,” he said in the statement, which was
translated from Afrikaans.
Johan smoked dagga. De Jager did not smoke
anything because he said he did not use drugs.
He said that before he passed out, Alexander
approached him for sex but he pushed her away.
At one stage, he woke up and saw her and Johan
sleeping in the bed.
He said he left the flat and did not make
contact with the pair again.
The State alleges that De Jager picked up
Alexander near Parow on May 18, 2008, raped her and killed her.
Her body was found next to the N7 highway in Philadelphia, near
Atlantis, the next day. A post mortem revealed she had been
strangled.
De Jager has also been charged with the murder
of Mpumalanga resident Charmaine Mare and the defilement of her
corpse.
According to the indictment, Mare holidayed in
Cape Town in January, staying with a friend in Kraaifontein. Her
friend's mother was dating De Jager.
On January 7, the friend, the mother, and De
Jager's son went on a cruise, leaving Mare and De Jager alone in
the house.
The State alleges De Jager made repeated sexual
advances, which the teenage girl rejected.
The family returned home on January 11 and
could not find Mare. De Jager registered a missing person case
with the police.
Her burned body was found in a nearby field.
Her hands and feet had been cut off. Her hands were later found in
the garage of the home and her feet next to the N2 highway near
Firgrove, in Somerset West.
Man on trial after teenager dismembered
Iol.co.za
November 11, 2013
THE trial of Johan de Jager, accused of
murdering a teenage girl in Kraaifontein in January and of
strangling a sexworker five years earlier, is set to start in the
Western Cape High Court today.
De Jager is accused of killing and dismembering
Charmaine Maré, 18, who had been on holiday in Cape Town.
De Jager faces a number of charges relating to
two murders.
The State alleges that in the first incident De
Jager had picked up Hiltina Alexander, 18, a sex worker, in Parow
on May 18, 2008. He then raped her.
Alexander’s body was discovered the next day
along the N7 in Philadelphia near Atlantis.
A post-mortem showed she had been strangled.
The State summary said Maré, of Mpumalanga, had
been on holiday in Cape Town in January this year and had been
staying with her friend and her friend’s mother in Kraaifontein.
De Jager had also stayed there. On January 7,
Maré’s friend, the friend’s mother and De Jager’s son had gone
sailing.
They were expected to return on January 11.
Maré and De Jager were left alone in the house
and the State alleges De Jager made sexual advances to Maré.
She had rejected him.
When Maré’s friend, the friend’s mother and De
Jager’s son returned on January 11, they discovered that Maré was
missing.
De Jager had reported this to the Kraaifontein
police.
The State’s summary said Maré’s burnt body was
found in bush in Kraaifontein.
Her hands and feet had been cut off.
Her hands were found in the garage next to her
friend’s mother’s house, while her feet were found along the N2
near Firgrove in Somerset West.
Maré’s body, identifiable only by her tongue
ring and necklace, was discovered in Kraaifontein on January 14.
De Jager had been arrested two days later.
Police spokesman Frederick van Wyk said that a
missing person’s poster for Maré had been placed less than 100
metres from the house that she had been staying in.
In Elterman Street, where Maré had stayed, a
number of residents expressed their shock at the murder and De
Jager’s arrest.
The residents said the violent death had left
them feeling fearful.
