Bank consultant Juanita Coetzee was sentenced to life and 14 years in jail by the Johannesburg High Court on Friday for murdering her former husband shortly after their divorce.
Judge Joop Labuschagne said that Coetzee was not a battered wife, as claimed, but a manipulative woman who had her former husband killed to inherit over R1-million.
The long-haired blonde sat with her head bowed at the end of the trial as family and friends sat stony-faced behind her. Relatives of the deceased, Ivan Coetzee, sat crying on the opposite side of the courtroom.
”The heartbreak caused by the accused’s actions to the two families is indescribable,” said the judge.
He noted that she showed no remorse and the only time during the trial that she showed any emotion was when she spoke of her daughter.
Coetzee and her husband were divorced on May 19, 2004 but continued living together. He was shot dead in his home in Glenharvie, Westonaria, on May 30, 2004.
He was killed as he returned from receiving medical treatment for a stab wound from a botched hijacking and attempt on his life earlier in the day.
Coetzee had locked the killer in the house and set the alarm when she went to fetch her husband.
Ivan Coetzee’s will and insurance policies were to have been altered the following day, May 31, to exclude Juanita Coetzee as a beneficiary.
Eleven days after the murder, Jakobus Beauzec, who is the father of Juanita Coetzee’s child, went on trial. Coetzee was pregnant with the child when she married Beauzec’s brother Francois.
Jakobus Beauzec pleaded guilty to the attempted murder and the murder and is serving life imprisonment.
Coetzee pleaded guilty on August 6 to being involved in the attempted murder, murder and defeating the ends of justice by making a false statement to the police.
In court she claimed she saw murder as the only way out of her oppressive situation, alleging the deceased had abused her emotionally, physically and sexually, and had controlled her finances.
On Friday Labuschagne found the brothers had made a good impression as witnesses. The tape recorded conversations between Coetzee and Jakobus Beauzec on the bank landline showed that she had played on Beauzec’s feelings by claiming she was being abused.
It also showed that the murder was all her plan.
The evidence of her first husband, accepted by the court, was that she liked rough sex and had watched pornographic films depicting whipping. Her claims that her husband abused her were rejected by the court.
During the trial a box of sex toys, including whips, a sjambok and handcuffs was produced. Photographs of Coetzee showing lash marks on her buttocks were also before the court. Coetzee admitted she would also tie up and lash her husband.
Regarding control of her finances, it was found by the court that for her salary she appeared to have far too many accounts and appeared to be a spendthrift.
It appeared that the deceased had merely been trying to curb this, said the judge.
Coetzee was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder, 10 years for attempted murder and four years for the false statement. – Sapa