On Monday Nicolette Lotter, 29, will continue her harrowing testimony in one of the most sensational trials to be conducted in the Durban High Court in recent memory. She and her brother Hardus, 23, and Nicolette’s former boyfriend, Matthew Naidoo, 25, are accused of the killings of their parents Magdalena (Riekie) and Johan Lotter in their Westville home in 2008.
Schoolteacher Riekie was stabbed to death after attempts to inject air into her veins to cause a heart arrest failed. Johan, a manager at chemical firm Lanxess, was strangled with a piece of electrical flex.
The trial has been delayed numerous times owing to the World Cup, court recesses, changes in legal representation and prolonged testimony by Naidoo.
The Tribune visited Nicolette this week in the awaiting trial section of the women’s facility at Westville Prison.
She and Hardus have spent the best part of four years behind bars. Appearing thinner than before, the young woman was agitated and afraid of what lay ahead.
“I am scared. I have learnt the hard way how to bottle up my emotions… In here if you cry or show weakness, you are seen as weak and targeted by the other women.”
She said that as the conclusion of the trial neared, attitudes towards her had hardened.
“They are saying I am a Satanist. It really hurts because I have always been a Christian. Some women here have committed multiple crimes, though, and know they won’t be getting out for a long time, so they vent their spite.”
The attitude of the female warders towards Lotter appeared to have hardened since the Tribune visited her on a previous occasion.
Lotter is particularly rattled after an interview with a reporter from a weekly magazine, who secured it, she said, on false pretences.
“He said he wanted to talk to me about redemption, but then he twisted my words and invented things I never told him,” she said. “I haven’t stopped crying since I saw a proof of the article.”
A legal representative for Lotter has instructed the magazine that it will fall foul of the law if they go to print before the trial is over.
Lotter said she still prayed every day that her sister, Christelle, who cut off contact with the siblings after the murders, would forgive them.
“I feel she is being fed lies by people who are making money from her. They don’t have her best interests at heart. They know that if she speaks to us, and hears the truth, then they will lose their cash cow.”
Lotter said that she would answer to Christ for her sins, but knew she would never be free of the crimes.
“I pay every day for what I did,” she said. “I cannot look my mother in the eye and say: ‘You were right when you warned me about the company I kept.’ I cannot say to my father: ‘Thank you for your love and protection all my life.’
“If I get out of prison one day and should have a child, he or she will turn to me and say: ‘Where is granny? Where is grandpa?’ It will never be over.”
During the course of this week psychiatrist Lourens Schlebusch will testify regarding the emotional state of the Lotters.
Naidoo has never requested psychological assessment. - Sunday Tribune