The self-confessed murderer of Icelander Gisli Thorkellson has been jailed for 20 years, the Afrikaans daily newspaper Beeld reported on Wednesday.
Desiree Louis Oberholzer (43) of Bryanston, pleaded guilty to the murder during a court appearance in April.
Oberholzer’s co-accused in the murder, Willie Theron (29) whom she claimed fired the shot that killed Thorkellson (54) has denied any involvement.
Thorkellson’s body was found encased in concrete with only his feet and part of his legs sticking out in July 2005, when a Boksburg resident forced open a dustbin left behind by a former lodger.
Oberholzer’s disturbed childhood saved her from the prescribed minimum life sentence for murder, Beeld reported.
”It is clear that she had a seriously disturbed childhood. She married three times, but all the marriages failed. She lost custody of her children,” Judge Naren Pandya noted during sentencing.
Evidence was led that Oberholzer’s father started sexually abusing her when she was eight, after he divorced her mother. She had a nervous breakdown at 13, when he no longer needed her sexually and she was raped twice by her step-brother. One of her three children — from her first marriage at 17 — died of rabies.
Pandya found the murder of Thorkellson was pre-meditated and calculated and that Oberholzer was well aware that the plan was to kill Thorkellson and not just steal his money.
Oberholzer and Theron picked up Thorkellson at the Johannesburg International airport on May 25 2005 on his return from a holiday in the United States.
He had lived in South Africa since 1994, and was self-employed and single at the time of his death. His body was repatriated to Iceland, following the release of dental records from the US confirming his identity. – Sapa