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Men jailed for Xmas Eve murder
17/04/2008 21:18 - (SA)
Cape Town - Two men who stabbed an elderly woman and cut off her fingers to remove her rings were sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment on Thursday.
Engela Groenewald was killed in her flat in Malmesbury near Cape Town.
Judge Deon van Zyl said in his ruling that the murder, which took place on Christmas Eve in 2004, turned a festive occasion into a grieving one for the woman's family.
Collin Maarman, 24, and Elton Joseph, 19, were found guilty of the premeditated murder of Groenewald and of housebreaking and armed robbery.
The judge said minimum sentences, which included life for premeditated murder and 15 years' for aggravated armed robbery, were introduced in an attempt to severely punish serious crimes.
Van Zyl ruled that the age of the two at the time of the murder, as well as the fact that they had already been in prison for a considerable time, justified a less-severe sentence.
However, he had to consider whether the vicious and barbaric attack on a defenceless, elderly woman outweighed the mitigating factors.
Cut off fingers to get rings
He said at least 12 of the multiple stab wounds to her body had been fatal, and that the pathologist in the case had described the attack as an "overkill".
Cutting the woman's fingers off to remove her rings, and tearing the lobe of her ears to remove her earrings, was the "height of loathsomeness".
Although he did not consider life imprisonment appropriate in this case, long-term jail sentences were called for, said the judge.
On the housebreaking and armed-robbery charges, Maarman was sentenced to 10 years' and Josephs to 12 years', but these sentences were to run concurrently with the 18 years' for murder.
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