Cape Town - The family of murdered Stellenbosch doctor Louis Heyns say they have forgiven his killer, Marthinus van der Walt, who on Thursday was sentenced to life in prison by the Western Cape High Court.
Judge Andre le Grange sentenced Van der Walt to life for Heyns’s murder and 15 years for robbery with aggravating circumstances. The sentences will run concurrently.
Earlier on Thursday, Le Grange said he did not think Van der Walt could be rehabilitated and described the 2013 murder as gruesome. He said Van der Walt was a danger to society.
The 35-year-old began his life of crime at the age of 17 and has a string of fraud, housebreaking and car theft convictions. His brother Sarel van der Walt, who entered into a plea bargain with the State, is already serving 24 years for being an accessory to the murder of Heyns who was two weeks shy of his 60th birthday when he was killed.
Van der Walt stood expressionless as the judge passed sentence. Not a single friend or relative was in court to support him.
Earlier this week, the Western Cape High Court acquitted Van der Walt on a kidnapping charge as the State had failed to prove Heyns was hijacked and taken to a notorious gay hotspot in the Strand where his body was found.
Heyns went missing on the evening of the May 22, 2013. His body was found eight days later.
Standing on the steps of the High Court, Heyns’s emotional brother-in-law Andre Mouton said it would take time for the family to process their grief and pain, but that they did not hate Van der Walt. Instead, they have forgiven him.
He described Heyns as a “teacher, brother, guide and father” whose brutal murder would continue to haunt those who loved him.
In a typed statement handed out to the media, Heyns’s widow Dalene said she prayed for her husband’s killer as well as his brother Sarel.
Married to Heyns for 33 years, she said Saturday the 30th of May would mark two years since his mutilated body was found in a shallow grave on the Strand beachfront.
She said “just the thought of the cruelty her husband endured and the intense fear and anxiety he must have felt before his death, threatens to overcome me at times”.
She said she comforted herself with “the hope and belief that God was with him” in his final moments and said “the extreme violence, uncaring and inhumane manner in which her husband was killed has had an indescribable impact on her family and those who knew him well”.
Testifying in aggravation of sentence on Tuesday, a colleague said Heyns’s death had left a massive void in South African paediatrics.
His 30-year-old daughter also told the court that her loving and caring father’s death had devastated her family.
ANA