'I need God's forgiveness'
2007-12-06 23:45
Pietermaritzburg - Former top athlete Heidi McIntosh told Judge Chris Nicholson she had been plagued by guilt for 10 years since she murdered her husband.
The 42-year-old mother of two, who has confessed after 10 years that she murdered her husband in 1997, told Judge Nicholson on Thursday she has been plagued by guilt for a decade.
McIntosh, who has no fixed address, pleaded guilty to having shot and killed her third husband, William Ernest McIntosh, with a shotgun as he lay sleeping on January 17 1997 at their home in Korhaan Street, Aviary Hill, in Newcastle in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
Her confession was sparked by an incident when she was robbed and assaulted in Port Elizabeth this year, the court heard.
McIntosh told the judge: "It was a very traumatic 10 years. I was never happy.
"Whenever something bad happened I thought it was happening to punish me."
Seeking God's forgiveness
She is to be sentenced on December 11. Her lawyer, Johan du Toit, has urged the court to consider imposing a sentence of correctional supervision on her.
Her report that McIntosh had committed suicide was accepted until she confessed to the murder on August 10 this year before a magistrate in Port Elizabeth.
McIntosh said she felt a need to seek God's forgiveness and to "put my life back on track".
Dressed in black slacks, sandals and a black-and-white blouse, her dark hair drawn back off her face with an Alice-band, McIntosh gave evidence in a composed manner, displaying no visible emotion.
She testified that her late husband (whom she had married for love in 1989) refused to grant her a divorce when the marriage turned sour.
She said he threatened to kill her and the children and to commit suicide if she left him. He once tried to take his own life by overdosing on medication.
This caused her to attempt reconciliation, but it failed.
McIntosh said the marriage floundered when she realised he was a racist.
She said her husband, then a supervisor for Eskom, hankered after the days when he was called "baas" by black workers, swore at and behaved aggressively towards people of colour and could not bear that she took part in sports events side by side with people from other racial groups.
He even physically dragged her out of races if he saw, for example, a black person hand her a water bottle.
The couple moved from Kempton Park to Newcastle in the belief it was "more white", but instead this proved "a nightmare" for her husband as he had to work in a black township and fell victim to death threats by black workers.
He then became more aggressive and depressed.
Refused divorce
In her unhappiness, McIntosh embarked on an affair with Gary Coetzee, a fellow-athlete and member of her club, Newcastle Harriers Athletics Club.
The affair ended before the murder, she said.
She said that when McIntosh found out about the relationship, he vowed he would not divorce her, nor allow her to take the children from him.
He also threatened (and once tried) to shoot Coetzee, she said.
McIntosh said that on the night of his death they fought bitterly and he again threatened to kill the entire family.
She drank a glass of wine, along with anti-depressant medication and a sleeping tablet. She was deeply depressed and felt helpless to protect her children.
Shot with shotgun
"After 11 (pm) I woke up. I was still very upset - I went to see if the children were alright.
"Although I saw they were safe, I was still afraid my husband would carry out his threats.
"I went to the gun safe and got the shotgun. I loaded it. I then went to my husband and shot him.
"I went to my neighbour and told him my husband had committed
suicide," said McIntosh.
Under cross-examination by advocate Andre Ludick, McIntosh said she could not recall exactly what went through her mind. "I was emotional -scared - it felt as if it was not really happening to me," she said.