'I grabbed the gun and shot back'

2008-11-11 09:16

Hilda Fourie

Pretoria - After he shot and killed his wife Riekie, Johan Riekert sent an SMS to her father, Hennie Hietbrink, saying "Riek shot me. I grabbed the gun and shot back".

The SMS is one of many that Riekert, 43, sent on the day of his wife's death and the day before, to her, his 15-year-old daughter, Hietbrink and his brother Corné Riekert. The SMSes were handed in as evidence in his murder trial in the Pretoria High Court on Monday.

Riekie Riekert, 40, was found dead on the veranda of Milly's Country Stall in Dullstroom on March 11 2007.

Investigating officer Inspector Lizette Fourie testified that the first SMS was sent at 10:17 on March 10.

It was the day after Riekert had left their home on a farm near Dullstroom after his wife had asked him for a divorce.

In a disjointed SMS to his brother he wrote: "unnecessary useless stress she is putting on herself plus periods are affecting her head. Until she is thinking straight and stops this shit I'm nowhere."

In another SMS, Riekert pleaded with his wife to take him back because he loved her.

Riekert told his 15-year-old daughter that she and her brother, 12, had betrayed him by standing "100% behind your mother".

Shots

Superintendent Thea de Bruin, a ballistics specialist, testified that when she did a reconstruction of the scene, Riekert had told her he and his wife had had a row on the day of her death.

"A shot went off and it was this shot that injured him. According to his knowledge, only two shots went off, of which one injured him and the other caused his wife's death."

Advocate Gerhard de Bruin, Riekert's legal representative, said his client could not have told De Bruin when and where he had been shot, as he didn't know himself.

The case continues.

- Beeld