The only survivor of the Sizzlers massage parlour massacre held his arms up in victory as he exited the Cape High Court on Tuesday after the two men responsible for the brutal crime were sentenced to nine life sentences.
”I’m happy. Justice was done. Now I can move on,” said a smiling Quinton Taylor, who was cheered by a crowd, which had gathered outside the court.
Adam Roy Woest and Trevor Basil Theys were also sentenced to 20 years for the attempted murder of Taylor, the only man to survive.
They also got 15 years for robbery.
Curious spectators and media crushed around Taylor as he tried to express his emotions.
”It’s over and closed. I can have fun and live life again. They’ve got life sentences. They’ll never see the outside of their cells. I’m ecstatic.”
Theys’s elder brother, Andrew, said he did not believe that the police had found all the evidence.
”There’s something more in this thing. That’s not all the evidence. They didn’t find anything. The case wasn’t properly investigated,” he said.
Asked about allegations that a third person was involved in the killings, he said: ”No I can’t comment on that. That’s dangerous”.
The court had heard during the trial that Theys feared for his life and his family if he disclosed who else was involved in the massacre.
Andrew said although he had visited his brother in jail he could never talk to him properly.
”There’s a camera filming everything. You can’t talk about the case…I couldn’t ask him what happened. I don’t think that was what happened…this is not the proper story.”
Aubrey Otgaar, Sergio de Castro, Stephanus Fouche, Travis Reade, Johan Meyer and Timothy Boyd died in the massage parlour on Graham Road in Sea Point on January 20.
Gregory Berghaus, Marius Meyer and Warren Visser died later in hospital. The men were all shot in the head and had their throats slit during their three-hour ordeal.
Otgaar’s mother, Joan, said the life sentences that the two faced would not change the fact that her son was dead.
Meanwhile, the death sentence would have been a more appropriate sentence for the two Sizzlers killers, the New National Party said on Tuesday.
NNP safety and security spokesman Johnny Schippers agreed with Judge Nathan Erasmus that a more effective deterrent was needed for brutal crimes like the Sizzlers massacre.
During sentencing on Tuesday Erasmus said there was a public perception that life imprisonment was effectively imprisonment for a limited time to be decided by the prison authorities.
However, his understanding of life imprisonment was that it was the most severe sentence that could be imposed in order to remove the accused from society for the rest of their lives.
Schippers said that while the NNP supported Erasmus’s statements the party would continue to campaign for the return of the death penalty.
”The death penalty is the only effective deterrent for such hideous and violent crimes.”
Meanwhile, UDM safety and security spokesman Jakes Maseka welcomed the sentences.
”We view the nine life sentences given by Justice Erasmus as confirmation that in our society murder is a serious offence that will not be tolerated.”
Maseka said he hoped the sentence would give some consolation to the families of the murdered men. – Sapa