By Ella Smook
"He's got his life sentence, we've got ours." So said Dusty Wheeler, mother of murdered Jessica Wheeler, after Knysna DJ Heinrich van Rooyen, 25, was convicted of killing her daughter.
Knysna circuit court Judge Nathan Erasmus on Friday found Van Rooyen guilty of the murders of Wheeler, 19, and Victoria Stadler, 20, the indecent assault of Wheeler, the torching of Stadler's car, and obstruction of justice for prompting a witness to make a false statement to police.
The State had argued that Wheeler had been seen with Van Rooyen near St George's church shortly before her murder.
'He's got his life sentence, we've got ours' Wheeler's body was found at the church grounds a few hours later on October 13.
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She had multiple abrasions to her body and had choked to death on soil.
Forensic tests linked Van Rooyen's DNA to semen found in Wheeler's anus and to skin that was recovered from under the nails of her left hand.
Van Rooyen got a lift to Hornlee from Stadler on November 10.
Five days later, Stadler's decomposed body was found in the Noetzie forest, off a road near Hornlee.
'It does not bring her back, but at least Jess knows we went all out' Stadler's burnt-out car was metres away from her body.
She, too, had been sexually assaulted.
Her body was found with only a white shirt and bra on, both of which were undone.
Semen was found on her black trousers nearby.
However, it could not be established that she had been raped or sodomised.
The postmortem, which attributed death to strangulation, said there were no obvious injuries to her vagina or anus due to the body's "fairly advanced decomposition and severe maggot infestation".
Again the semen at the scene was linked to Van Rooyen.
Substantial amounts of pollen specific to the area where Stadler was killed was found on the trousers Van Rooyen usually wore when in the DJ-box.
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