A gardener who killed his employer’s wife – whom he really liked – for a promised house and money, wiped tears from his eyes on Thursday as the Pretoria High Court sentenced him to an effective 18 years in jail.
Lucas Moloi, who has been diagnosed HIV-positive and suffering from TB, this week asked the court’s forgiveness for killing former air hostess Cordelia Prinsloo by bashing her skull in with a garden spade.
Moloi said she was a nice woman and he got along with her, but he needed the money his employer, Cordelia’s former husband Cobus Prinsloo, had promised him.
However, he received nothing after the murder.
Prinsloo, a prominent geologist, this week pleaded not guilty to the murder. His case will proceed on Friday.
Moloi said he was “more than willing” to testify against his former employer.
Judge Winston Msimeki sentenced Moloi to 18 years for the murder and a further three years for theft. He ordered that he serve an effective 18 years.
The theft charge was because Moloi stole various items out of Cordelia’s home after dumping her body in a bed of flowers on the smallholding she shared with her estranged husband north of Pretoria.
Moloi pleaded guilty to the murder but said Prinsloo had offered him R50 000 and a house for killing his wife.
Cordelia was watering the garden on the morning of October 12, 2009, and had asked him to fetch a spade.
He said he saw this as his chance to kill her, as requested by his employer. He hit her several times on the head and on the collar bone.
The woman died instantly and he pulled her body to a nearby flower bed, where he left it.
Prinsloo later “discovered” the body. Moloi said he had killed the woman for money and Prinsloo had promised him nobody would ever know what had happened.
Judge Msimeki said the act of taking a life was reprehensible.
“It is always difficult if a loved one dies of natural causes. It is even worse when a loved one dies due to murder.”
Society looked at the courts to mete out harsh punishments where appropriate and there should never be a stage that the community felt it had to take the law into its own hands, the judge said.
He told Moloi: “You waited for the right moment to kill her. You wasted no time as you hit her on her head, causing her to die.
“You said you got on well with the victim, but you murdered her, all because of greed.”
While Moloi said his employer took advantage of him by asking him to kill his wife, the choice to do so was still that of the accused, the judge said.
“You killed the victim who did nothing to you. One only hopes the truth will come out during the trial of accused number two (Prinsloo).
“She trusted you and even asked you to provide the murder weapon (spade), which you used on her. All this, just because of greed.”
The judge said this was a contract killing, adding that assassinations and contract killings had to be rooted out and the perpetrators had to face harsh punishments.
“The blows you delivered to the victim were such that she would never have survived. You intended to remove her from the face of this Earth. The murder was so well planned that you were even given the assurance by accused number two that you would not be caught.
“You have to be punished for your dastardly deeds,” the judge said.
Cordelia’s siblings, Angie le Roux and George Schoonraad, said afterwards that they were satisfied with the sentence, but it would not bring their sister back. They would now closely watch the trial of their former brother-in-law. - Pretoria News