OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Saturday
A JOHANNESBURG man and his New Zealand-based father – who share the same name -both go on trial this month on separate charges of murdering their wives.
Colin David Bouwer, 50, a former head of the department of psychological medicine at the Dunedin School of Medicine, goes on trial in Dunedin this month on charges of causing his wifes death by inducing a hypoglycaemic coma.
His son, Colin David Bouwer, 26, was charged in May 2000 with the 1999 murder of his wife Ria, 23, in their Kempton Park home. His trial is scheduled to start on April 23.
Bouwer senior’s counsel David More has declined to comment. He had earlier sought an injunction to stop the Otago Daily Times publishing details of Bouwer junior’s trial, but the application was denied in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal.
Bouwer junior says the trial will exonerate him. “I am glad it is finally here so that I can prove my innocence … It is just circumstantial, the State has no evidence. I believe that I will be a free man after this court case,” he said.
Bouwer jr was born in December 1974, during his father’s marriage to his first wife, Marietta. The couple married in November 1973, but were divorced in 1979.
Bouwer junior said he had seen very little of his father in the past 20 years. “I saw him maybe five times in that time.”
Ria Bouwer was found strangled in the guest bathroom of their home on May 7, 1999. Police worked on the case for several months, before Ria Bouwer’s mother hired a private investigator to look into her daughter’s death.
Bouwer junior claimed in his bail hearing that on the morning of his wife’s death he had collected their daughter Melissa, two, from home and had gone on various errands throughout the day. When he returned home he found his wife dead.
A preliminary hearing for Bouwer senior began in Dunedin last week and is expected to last for at least a month.
South African-born Annette Bouwer joined her husband and two children in New Zealand at the beginning of 1998.
She died two years later at the family’s home, six weeks after her admission to Dunedin Hospital for the first of two episodes of hypoglycaemic coma.
Dunedin police claim Bouwer senior wrote false prescriptions for significant amounts of drugs affecting blood sugar levels just a few days before Mrs Bouwer’s health deteriorated.