Durban – The regular six-hour drive from Johannesburg to Durban was different this time around for Vanessa Chetty, who kept thinking of her sister, niece and nephew who were killed three years ago.
The journey with her husband, Sunny, was not to visit family, but to see her brother-in-law, Mogamberry “Rajen” Kandasamy, being convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on Tuesday for the gruesome triple murder he had denied being responsible for.
Kandasamy, 48, had repeatedly struck his 41-year-old wife, Versha “Mala” Kandasamy, his 18-year-old daughter, Melarisa, and 16-year-old son Megandran with two wooden maces in their Chatsworth home.
Megandran Kandasamy
The couple had returned home during the early hours of December 29, 2013, when Kandasamy hit Mala repeatedly on her head, fatally wounding her.
At some point during the attack, the children entered the bedroom and were also struck repeatedly on their heads with the wooden maces.
On Tuesday, Chetty said her happy childhood memories growing up with her sister – her best friend – played through her mind as she made her way to the Durban High Court.
Melarisa Kandasamy
“My worst fear was that he might get away with their murders. I feared the court might believe his version that he had no memory of killing his wife and children,” she said through tears of joy after Judge Shyam Gyanda handed down his judgment and sentence.
“My sister was a bubbly person, and always happy. She managed to convince us that she was happy in her marriage, when she was actually being abused to the point that she wanted a divorce."
“She kept quiet and she pretended to be fine,” she said.
However, Chetty sensed something was amiss when her sister told her one day that should anything happen to her, everything she owned should go to her children.
Versha Kandasamy
“She did not want to talk about it. When I heard that she and the children were murdered and that her husband was implicated, at first I could not believe it because I trusted him and I never thought he would do something like this. I knew him as a quiet man,” she said.
Passing sentence, the judge told Kandasamy he had robbed his children, who were excelling at school, of the opportunity to blossom into adulthood.
“The children had done nothing wrong. You killed them just because they were going to be witnesses to the murder of their mother,” he said.
“The manner that you killed them in was brutal. The assaults were intended to kill. Each strike was deliberately made on the head,” said Gyanda.
He said Kandasamy had shown no remorse and had not taken responsibility for his actions.
“You have shown no remorse, and until you accept responsibility for this gruesome act of crime, you have not taken the first step to rehabilitation,” said Gyanda.
During argument before sentencing, Kandasamy’s lawyer, Siven Samuel, had pleaded with the court to have mercy on his client, whose life, he said, had centred around his wife and children whom he would not see again.
This, Samuel said, was punishment on its own.
He blamed the alcohol and tablets Kandasamy took that night for his actions.
“He could have taken the drugs with alcohol as an attempt to commit suicide and end his life because his wife, who he had his life centred around, was divorcing him. The combination of alcohol and tablets could have created an environment out of his character. It was one crazy moment that caught up with him,” Samuel argued.
However, Gyanda dismissed this reasoning, saying Kandasamy had let his emotions get the better of him and had consumed alcohol and taken tablets to gain courage to confront his wife in their bedroom.
“I am not convinced that he may have taken drugs to end his life."
“If that was the reason, he would not have eliminated the children who he thought would be witnesses to the murder,” said Gyanda.
He said that while there were campaigns all over the media discouraging abuse against women and children, it was men like Kandasamy who still subjected them to abuse.
“We are in the 21st century. If people do not want to learn to treat women and children well, then it is up to the courts to deal with them.”
After the sentencing, Kandasamy stood in the dock, showing no emotion.
He shook Samuel’s hand before walking down to the holding cells, without saying a word.
Outside court, Samuel could not say whether Kandasamy would appeal against his conviction and sentence.
Chetty, who was consoled by her husband and friends, said her sister and her children would now rest peacefully.
“Justice has been served. I had prayed on my way here that he gets to spend the rest of his life in jail.
“I am happy and sad at the same time. I will never see them, but I will sleep better at night knowing that the killer is behind bars,” she said.