Mom talks to murdered kids
2009-09-23 22:05
Cape Town - Policewoman Charlotte van der Westhuizen held up two green, floral-print dresses and a doll in the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday as she described the memories of her murdered children.
She was testifying ahead of the sentencing of her ex-policeman husband Marius, who has been convicted of shooting their three children on the night of July 28 2006.
Charlotte told the court that the dresses had been the favourites of 16-year-old Bianca and 21-month-old Antoinette, who was nicknamed Nettie Bettie.
The girls' eight-year-old brother Marius, known as Boetie, had dubbed the outfits their "apple dresses" because of the green colour.
She showed the court a doll of Antoinette's, which she said still smelled of stale milk from her daughter's efforts to feed it, and a ragged Spiderman T-shirt that had belonged to Boetie.
'When I miss the kids...'
"When I miss the children I take them and I smell them," she said of the items.
"I so much want to press my face into her [Antoinette's] neck and feel her and smell her."
Charlotte, who has attempted suicide twice since the killings and has been in and out of a psychiatric clinic, said she slept with the mementoes next to her at night.
"And I talk to them [the children], and I talk to the Lord Jesus," she said.
Husband sobs
As she spoke, her husband, seated about four metres away and slightly behind her, struggled to stifle his sobs.
He kept his head bowed over an exercise book in which he has been making detailed notes of witnesses' testimony, and did not look at her as she spoke.
Earlier on Wednesday morning, she let out a low cry of "yes" when the police's commander of general investigations in the Western Cape, Director Johannes Brand, told the court he believed Marius should get a life sentence.
Sentencing proceedings continue on Monday.
- SAPA