Flower seller guilty of murder

2010-09-09 17:12

Cape Town - A Cape Town flower seller was on Thursday convicted of murdering a Bergvliet woman outside her own home, thanks in part to the fact that he left his fingerprints on her car.

Gershwin Hartzenberg, aged 23, was also found guilty on two counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances, and illegal possession of a gun and ammunition.

Western Cape High Court Judge Siraj Desai found that he shot Jane van Zyl, aged 55, through the head as she sat in her car outside her Bergvliet home on the night of April 13 2008 and stole her handbag.

Van Zyl, who had just dropped off her husband at a nearby hospital, had been killed "in the flower of her life", Desai said.

He also found Hartzenberg had robbed Newlands resident Linda Heeger at gunpoint a month earlier, confronting her, as he did with Van Zyl, in her car, outside her home, at night.

Desai rejected Hartzenberg's suggestion that his fingerprints were probably on both women's cars because he had touched them while selling flowers at an intersection.

Contradictions

There had been testimony that it was the husbands in both families who bought flowers, not the wives, and that when they bought, they did so at retail outlets, not from roadside vendors.

It was so improbable that the Van Zyls or Heegers had bought flowers from Hartzenberg that the possibility could be ignored.

Desai said the defence's case was riddled with contradictions, and he was satisfied Hartzenberg had fabricated his alibi - that he was with his girlfriend watching DVDs - for the night of the Van Zyl killing.

Hartzenberg could not even provide the surname of the girlfriend, Desai said.

It emerged during the case that at the time he committed the crimes Hartzenberg had recently been released from Pollsmoor prison, on bail for another offence for which he has yet to be tried.

There was also evidence that he had received a 21st birthday SMS message from members of the 26s, a Cape Flats gang, and another message in what the judge called "gangster language".

Closure

Van Zyl's husband, Smiley, breathed deeply after the judgement was delivered, removed his glasses and pressed a tissue to his eyes.

He told reporters it was important to get closure, and to know who the actual murderer was.

"You can't harp on the past all your life, but you also can't get on with your life unless you have the facts.

"I can only feel satisfied because he has been found guilty on the counts. More than that you can't ask for."

Asked if he could forgive Hartzenberg, he said: "Forgive, never. Forget, never. Closure? Sure."

Mitigation of sentence

Addressing the court in mitigation of sentence, Hartzenberg's Attorney Ebrahim Holt said his client had passed only Standard Two at school, and had lost his mother at the age of eight.

Hartzenberg had worked as a flower seller from a young age.

Holt said Hartzenberg did not want to take the stand himself, but wanted to call an aunt.

Hartzenberg admitted previous convictions for use and possession of drugs, for which he received a suspended sentence and a warning.

Desai postponed the case to September 20 for her testimony, saying he would deliver sentence on the 22nd.

- SAPA