Pretoria - The murdered ex-wife of a Pretoria geologist lived in fear he was planning to kill her, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday.
A friend and a colleague of murdered Cordelia Prinsloo testified on Tuesday she had been anxious and appeared to be living in fear of her life in the month preceding her murder.
Prinsloo, 59, an air hostess, was murdered at her house in Kameeldrift in October 2009.
Prinsloo's ex-husband Cobus pleaded not guilty to hiring his gardener to kill her. The gardener, Lucas Moloi, was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment in November last year, after admitting he killed Prinsloo by hitting her twice on the back of the head with a shovel.
Prinsloo denied Moloi's claims that he had offered him R50 000 and a house to commit the crime.
His advocate put it to Moloi that he had acted on his own, out of anger about his wages, and because he was reprimanded about his work.
Jackie Lauren, who met Cordelia Prinsloo at a music festival where both were selling goods, testified Cordelia visited her about a month before her death.
She told Lauren she was “very, very afraid for her life” and thought her husband was going to kill her because she had so much information on him.
Mrs Prinsloo said she and her former husband still lived on the same plot for the sake of their children.
When asked why she did not go to the police, Lauren told the court Mrs Prinsloo had told her it was a Catch 22 situation, as her former husband was friends with the police.
“She told me he (Mr Prinsloo) once came to her cottage, kicked down the door and raped her. She was very, very frightened. She was very anxious,” Lauren testified.
“This was about a month before her death. I never saw her again.”
Bert van Wyk, a pilot who worked with Mrs Prinsloo twice, testified he had once seen her crying after a flight. He gave her his number and they later met for coffee, during which time she told him of her problems. She said she was divorced and married in community of property.
She had bought a plot with her husband and tried to get her share after their divorce, but he was greedy and threatened many times to “get rid of her” if she kept nagging him, he told the court.
Van Wyk said she told him her husband was a “control freak” who kept her on the plot under his own conditions.
“She said her husband had told her after the divorce she would get nothing. He was violent towards her.”
She later phoned him again and told him she had a gut feeling her husband was planning something, as he was suddenly interested in her movements.
“She said the accused had directly told her 'I am going to kill you. I am going to take you out'.
“She was terrified. She was afraid. I could hear it,” Van Wyk testified.
Prinsloo's lawyer objected to the evidence, saying it was hearsay and not admissible.
The trial continues. - Sapa