Addict murdered benefactors
2007-08-29 21:06
Pietermaritzburg - A 22-year-old drug addict who admitted to bludgeoning two people to death, has been jailed for an effective 30 years by the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Wednesday.
Wade Anthony Schoeman, of Hibberdene, said that after he had killed the men, he had exchanged their cars and other possessions for drugs.
Judge Chimon Patel said Schoeman had grown up in a dysfunctional home. His father had left when he was still small, his alcoholic mother had married a man 13 years younger than her and they had not given him guidance.
Refused to give him money
When he was about 15 he realised that he was gay, which made his real father reject him. This may have made him turn to dagga at first and then to heroin and crack cocaine. He also formed relationships with older men.
On June 2, 2006 in the home of his host, Edwin White, aged 70, of Durban, White refused to give him money for drugs. He said he could no longer deal with Schoeman's drug problem and that they should stop seeing each other.
Schoeman said that he had felt used and betrayed and stabbed White, hit him with an ashtray and then smashed his head with a golf club.
He then took White's car and other goods to a Nigerian drug dealer and exchanged them for drugs.
Two days later he was told by Jonathan Durant, 45, of Port Shepstone, with whom, he said, he had had a "tumultuous" relationship, that he would end their relationship.
"This made me angry and helpless and I was unable to sleep. In the small hours of June 4 I went to his room armed with his hammer and hit his head several times.
"I drove his car to Durban and exchanged it and his other items for drugs."
Deeds would haunt him
Patel said that it seemed his benefactors had helped him with money for drugs. Life sentences for the murders would not be appropriate because he had come from a family that did not guide him well, had pleaded guilty, had come to terms with the enormity of his crimes, and was addicted to deleterious drugs.
His foul deeds would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Patel urged him to make a genuine effort to rehabilitate himself and use facilities in prison to rid him of his drug dependency.
He imposed 15 years for each of the murders and 10 years for each of the aggravated robberies.
The robbery sentences are to run concurrently with the murder terms, making a total of 30 years.
The judge ordered that Schoeman should not be eligible for parole until he had served 20 years.
- SAPA