By Estelle Ellis
"Have mercy, dear Lord, have mercy!" the wife of a former security guard shouted as he chased her down a Ceres farm road - then he gunned her down.
This was evidence given by an eyewitness in the Cape High Court on Thursday to the family massacre on the farm Ou Muur near Ceres, on February 20 last year.
Petronella Isaacs, the wife of a Mitchell's Plain pastor, who saw the attack, told Judge Siraj Desai that she would not have believed a human being could do what she had seen the killer, Johnny Jooste, do.
Jooste confessed to the court on Thursday that he had killed seven relatives, including his wife Lena and sons Blake and Sanjay, in "extreme anger".
He was convicted of seven charges of murder.
Isaacs told the court: "Sanjay was such a lovely baby. He was so fat and cute. My husband loved that child. The baby's death was very bad for my husband. He could not get over it."
Isaacs told the court that Lena Jooste had once told her that Jooste had threatened to kill her and the children.
But Jooste told the court: "I would never have done that. She would have left me. She would have taken her things and left me if I did as much as lift my hand against her. She knew she could get an interdict against me."
In his written confession he admitted that besides his immediate family, he also shot dead his three sisters-in-law, Janetta Jacobs, Cornelia Visagie and Sophia Swarts, and his brother-in-law, Barend Swarts.
He said he and had his wife had been having marital problems, and that his wife's family had continually interfered in the marriage.
At one stage court proceedings had to be adjourned because Jooste was sobbing uncontrollably.
"The only reason I can think of why I shot them was this build-up of emotions inside me. My wife did absolutely nothing wrong. I shot her in the heat of the moment."
He said that he had fled into the Ceres mountains after the incident because he needed to be alone.
"I had to cool down and become myself again. I did not want to flee. I realised that I had killed people. I sat still and thought about things. I realised that I shot seven people. They were people I cared for.
"I wondered what I should do. I realised I would be a danger to society if I was a fugitive. I would have had to rob and kill people just to stay alive."
He said he had been scared to surrender to police, because he thought they would shoot him.
"I know you have to send me to jail," he told Judge Desai. "I want to assure you that if I was myself that day and did not become so angry, we would not have been here. If I only had some time to think, we would not have been here.
"The last few days I have constantly thought about my loved ones' last moments. It bothers me a lot. I wanted to commit suicide to balance the scales. They were all honourable people."
Isaacs told the court that the Swarts couple had gone to a lot of trouble to make life better for people close to them. They had previously got Jooste a job as a security guard on Ou Muur farm.
At the time of the incident, the Jooste family were living in Wesbank, Kuils River, but were visiting the farm.
Jooste told the court that he had worked on and off as a security guard at various firms since 1984 and had always carried a gun.
In 1996 he had applied for a firearm licence, but was at first rejected because he had a conviction for assault in 1995. He had appealed and was granted a licence in December 1997.
He had bought the gun for his own protection, he said.
The trial continues on Monday.