The gardener who killed Cordelia Prinsloo, allegedly on the instructions of her former husband, has told the Pretoria High Court he is terribly sorry for what he did as he liked the woman whose head he bashed in with a garden spade.
Taking the stand in mitigation of sentence, Lucas Moloi, 35, asked Prinsloo’s family and the court for forgiveness.
He was convicted of murder earlier this week, after he pleaded guilty to killing the former air hostess on October 12, 2009, while she was watering her garden.
Cordelia lived on the same smallholding north of Pretoria in which her husband Cobus Prinsloo lived, but in a separate house. It is alleged that Prinsloo, a prominent geologist, promised Moloi R50 000 in cash and a house if he killed his wife.
Prinsloo pleaded not guilty this week, but did not give an explanation of plea. His trial has been separated from Moloi’s and he is to appear in court again on Thursday.
Moloi said earlier that Cordelia had asked him to fetch a spade while she was watering the garden on that fateful day. “I took the spade and hit her three times on the head and on the shoulder,” he said.
He then entered the house and stole a bag with jewellery, a laptop and foreign currency.
Cordelia’s body was later dumped on the smallholding and eventually “discovered” by Prinsloo, from whom she was divorced.
Moloi testified on Wednesday that he had worked as a security guard in Rustenburg until Prinsloo offered him a job in Pretoria.
He was to be paid R1 800 a month, with accommodation and free transport.
He stayed on Prinsloo’s plot.
Moloi said Prinsloo had asked him about a month before the killing to murder his wife. “I committed the crime, but I never got the reward.”
Moloi told the family of Cordelia as they sat in the public gallery on Wednesday: “Please forgive me, because I never intended doing what I eventually did.”
To the court Moloi said he knew he had transgressed the law.
Thin and pale, Moloi said he was receiving treatment in jail as he had been diagnosed with HIV/Aids and tuberculosis.
Asked by the prosecutor whether he had ever had problems with Cordelia, Moloi said: “Honestly, we had such a good relationship. There were no problems between us. I liked her.”
Asked why he had killed someone he liked, Moloi said he came from a humble background and when he met Prinsloo, he thought he could make a better living.
Moloi said Prinsloo had told him no one would ever know that he had committed the crime as he, PrInsloo, “would make sure nobody would find the body”.
“I believed him,” Moloi said.
He had learnt his lesson and would not do such a thing again.
“I promise I will come out of jail a better person,” Moloi said in asking for a jail sentence of between five and 10 years.
But the State called for an 18-year jail sentence for Moloi for killing “a very beautiful lady with whom he had a good relationship”. Prosecutor Josie van der Westhuyzen said it had been a cold-blooded contract killing and Moloi’s conduct had been reprehensible in the extreme. It was a chilling thought that a person could take another’s life for money.
Moloi is to be sentenced on Thursday. - Pretoria News