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Annestacia: Man pleads guilty
13/02/2008 17:00 - (SA)
Cape Town - Security guard Richard Engelbrecht, who on Wednesday pleaded guilty in the Cape High Court to the rape and murder of Cape Flats schoolgirl Annestacia Wiese, alleges that police threatened him with harm if he did not confess to a magistrate.
Although the magistrate gave him an option to refuse to make the confession, because of the threat he chose nevertheless to make it.
The confession, to Mitchells Plain Magistrate JF van Eden, was handed to acting Judge Richard Brusser and two assessors.
In it, Engelbrecht, 29, confesses that he first raped the 11-year-old girl, then murdered her.
Although he has pleaded guilty to the rape and murder, the judge has not yet pronounced him guilty, as he claims he was under the influence of the drug "tik" mixed with mandrax at the time, and was therefore not criminally responsible for his actions.
The confession says he was dating the girl's mother, Jeanine, at the time of the rape and murder.
Engelbrecht and the girl decided to go the Mitchells Plain promenade together, where Engelbrecht would buy the mother a gift.
Engelbrecht informed the mother of their intended visit to the promenade, to enable the mother to visit friends.
Engelbrecht says: "When the mother left to visit her friends, I did the crime. I was frozen for a while, when I realised what I did. I panicked, and put a blanket over her, while I cleaned up.
"There was blood on the bed and on the floor, and at that point the mother walked into the bedroom."
The mother asked him what happened, and he replied that he had "messed there".
The confession says the mother did not believe him.
Engelbrecht says: "She asked where's her daughter, and I said she had gone to the shop."
As the anxious mother kept walking in and out of the house, Engelbrecht urged her "not to worry".
Engelbrecht continues: "She started getting angry, and said she had a bad feeling that something bad is going to happen.
"When she said that, I felt I could take my own life."
The confession says the mother then went to a neighbour and, in the 15 minutes that she was away, Engelbrecht concealed the girl's body in the ceiling of the house.
He finishes the confession with: "From there, I left things, and pretended I did not know where the girl was."
The case continues.
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