Killer brothers ‘were close’

As children, the two brothers were “very close” and always played together in their backyard. Later, as adults, when one committed murder, the other proved an accessory after the fact.

On Tuesday, Elton and Wayne Smith, from Elsies River, who are the sons of a former pastor, will again walk into the Western Cape High Court for the last time as they face sentencing for the murder of Johannesburg-based consumer psychologist and media expert Klaas Jonkheid.

The brothers were convicted in December, with Elton convicted of the murder, while Wayne was convicted of being an accessory after the fact.

Jonkheid was believed to have been hijacked at or near the Spier Wine Estate in Stellenbosch, where he was attending a regional congress of the SA Marketing Research Association in 2009.

His body was found about 200m from the scene and there had been attempts to set it alight. His hired car had also been torched, while his belongings had been stolen.

Testifying in mitigating circumstances before Judge Ashley Binns-Ward onMonday, Wayne Smith took to the stand, telling the court of his relationship with his younger brother and his strict upbringing with his father, who would sometimes beat them.

“My brother and I are fairly close,” he told the court, while Elton looked on from the dock. “We have always been very close to each other.”

His relationship with his father, however, was non-existent, he said. “My father was not at home regularly while I was growing up. He would beat me if I did something wrong. My mother would try to interfere if the beating got too intense.”

Wayne also told the court of his dream to open a business one day and of his addiction to drugs, which he started using during his adolescence.

This prompted Judge Binns-Ward to say: “How will you do (any of) that if you’re addicted to drugs? Do you use drugs now? In jail?”

Wayne replied that he did as it was “freely available” in prison. “But I see myself as a good worker,” he said, before later going on to proclaim his innocence. He believed he had been found guilty “unfairly”.

“I have never seen a body,” he professed.

Elton chose not to take the stand.

Welfare reports by the Department of Social Development’s Dalienne Koegelenberg were handed in to the court.

In Elton’s report, Koegelenberg notes that according to him, it was Wayne who would get more of the beatings as he was the oldest.

“Their father instilled in them a sense of fear,” wrote Koegelenberg.

The brothers were to be sentenced on Tuesday morning. - Cape Times

aeysha.kassiem@inl.co.za