A woman and two men who lured a young mother into their home, to rob her of her car after spending the day drinking brandy and smoking ”tik”, were on Thursday jailed by the Cape High Court.
The woman, hairdresser Sybil Higgo, who lost her hair-dressing business because of her addiction to tik, told the court the drug had ruined her life. She was jailed for 20 years for murder and robbery.
Her co-accused, Roger de Freitas and Kirk van Rooyen, who had hidden in the house while Higgo lured Glenda Samsodien inside, were jailed for 25 and 15 years respectively.
They appeared before Judge Bennie Griesel, who said Samsodien had died in a robbery gone wrong.
He said Higgo had lived in a house opposite the pre-primary school Samsodien’s children attended.
Samsodien went to a parent’s meeting at the school on the evening of January 31 2006, after which Higgo lured her into her home with an offer of hair products.
Prosecutor Pedro van Wyk called for life sentences, based on legislation which made drug or liquor abuse, as the cause of serious crime, an aggravating rather than mitigating factor.
However, life sentences had to be reserved for the most serious of cases, and the Higgo case did not fit into that category, he said.
The judge said Higgo’s testimony — that drugs were more easily obtainable in prison than outside — was ”very disturbing”.
He said there had been a measure of planning for the robbery itself, but murder had not been included.
The judge added: ”The murder happened when the robbery itself went wrong.”
A fourth accused, Naseigh Davids, who had no part in the robbery or murder, but afterwards helped to bundle the body into the boot of Samsodien’s car, then dump it in bushes, was jailed for six years.
The judge said Higgo, De Freitas and Van Rooyen had planned to sell Samsodien’s car, and to use the money for liquor and drugs. – Sapa