Pta gardener found guilty

2003-03-27 22:36

Pretoria - A Pretoria gardener was convicted by a Pretoria judge on Thursday of strangling his elderly employer and attempting to rape her daughter, who suffers from multiple sclerosis.

Judge Dion Basson dismissed Orchard Ntuli's protestations that he knew nothing about the crimes and found him guilty of murdering the 76-year-old woman at her home in Ashley Gardens, Pretoria, in November 2001.

He was also convicted of assault, attempted rape and housebreaking.

The old woman, who was not identified in order to protect her daughter's identity, was to have moved into a garden flat with her son Clive a week after the incident.

Her daughter, who has been in a wheelchair since the incident and now lives in a home for disabled people, was saved when her brother came to investigate after a worried call by another sister, who said a strange man had answered their mother's phone.

He caught Ntuli with his hands around his disabled sister's neck, in the process of strangling her too.

The woman Ntuli was attempting to strangle told the court she had heard a crashing noise at the back door and her mother speaking to Ntuli before he burst into her room and locked her in.

Legs stiff

He later returned and twice tried to rape her, but could not succeed because her legs were stiff as a result of her condition and shock.

She said about three weeks before the incident her mother had fired Ntuli, who had worked for them every week for eleven years. He was dismissed because he refused to mow the lawn, and because the house had been sold.

Ntuli admitted being at the house that day, but said he had gone to fetch his salary and had seen nothing amiss at the house.

He claimed he was smoking a cigarette given to him by the daughter and was on his way out when the brother arrived and hit him on the head with a bottle without any reason.

He claimed the attack took place at the back door, although photos showed bloodstains at the front door. He spoke vaguely of being dragged to another spot, but insisted that he had passed out after the first attack with the bottle.

Basson dismissed his version as unlikely.

He said it was clear that Ntuli was the only intruder at the house that day. It was clear that he had broken open the door and had tried to rape the daughter.

Although the State had not presented any direct evidence on the elderly women's murder, the inference that he had killed her was inevitable.

- SAPA