The Cape High Court on Thursday jailed Dina Rodrigues and two accomplices for life for the baby Jordan-Leigh Norton contract murder.
Judge Basheer Waglay said the murder, in June 2005, was ”calculated, callous and cold-blooded”, and ”cowardly and cruel in the extreme”.
Rodrigues had hired four accomplices to murder the six-month-old girl after learning that her lover at the time, schoolteacher Neil Wilson, had fathered the infant during an earlier relationship with the baby’s mother, Natasha.
Sipho Mfazwe and Mongezi Bobotyane were also given life sentences for the murder. In addition, they were given 10 years each for aggravated armed robbery, relating to items they removed from the Norton home after the murder.
Two others, Zanethemba Gwada and Bonginkosi Sigenu, were effectively jailed for 15 years each for their part in the murder and robbery.
Of Rodrigues, the judge said: ”At no stage during the trial did she show any remorse as the instigator of this heinous murder. Wilson, her lover at the time of the murder, described her as a loving and caring person, and her former school principal also had praise for her as a pupil.
”However, these words ring hollow against the background of what she did. Ultimately, hers was the hand that held the hand that murdered the baby.”
He said she had ”returned to the safety of her workplace” after engaging taxi owner Mfazwe to recruit Bobotyane, Gwada and Sigenu to carry out the murder.
The judge added: ”This was the most horrendous of crimes, from a calculated, evil mind. When she returned to her place of employ afterwards, I wonder if it even bothered her that she had just contracted men to murder a baby. I wonder how she slept at night, knowing that soon she would have a baby killed.
”She had plenty of time to reconsider, time to stop the plan, but all she did was to ensure that the murder took place. This is evil personified — for her, organising the murder was like going to a supermarket to buy groceries. This was simply callousness of spirit.
”Everyone had ample chance to abandon the plan and walk away, but no one did. This murder was nothing short of barbaric.”
He said it required a particularly evilness of thought to murder a baby. — Sapa