Africa-Press – South-Africa. The father of Andrea Venter, who was butchered by her ex-boyfriend in her apartment in Lonehill, Johannesburg, says the family will never forgive the man for taking their daughter’s life.
During mitigation of sentencing in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Wednesday, a heartbroken and emotional Dries Venter took the stand and testified about the pain Gerhard Jansen van Vuuren had caused by murdering his only daughter.
Venter told the court that his late ex-wife Annetjie had two miscarriages before they had Andrea. Their first-born son, Kobus, was born in 1973. They had lived in Rustenburg at the time.
He said Andrea was born in 1985 through in vitro fertilisation, and that she had been one of the first children in Rustenburg to be born using this method, but the ninth one in Pretoria.
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Andrea matriculated in Rustenburg and studied accounting at the University of Potchefstroom, now North West University. Venter said Andrea was a qualified accountant and would teach smaller age groups ballet.
He added that his family was a close-knit one.
His son Kobus had lived in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, at the time that Andrea was dating Jansen van Vuuren.
Venter told the court that Andrea’s mother had died of heartache in January 2016 because she couldn’t deal with the death of her daughter.
“She struggled with heartache all the way until she died.”
Venter said he had identified his daughter’s body through a glass window at the mortuary shortly after she was murdered at her apartment in Lonehill, Johannesburg, in 2011.
“It was traumatic. Her eye was slit open, her nose and jaw were also broken,” he told the court.
Andrea was later cremated and her ashes were placed in a hole in a wall at a church. Venter told the court that he and his wife had been on medication to cope with the loss.
Jansen van Vuuren was arrested for the murder and later released on bail. However, he used fake documents to flee to Brazil in 2013, a few days before he was supposed to be tried for the murder.
‘I have no sympathy for you and your parents’
He was extradited back to South Africa in 2020 after seven years on the run. On 13 June, he was found guilty of premeditated murder and assault.
Venter said he was relieved when Jansen van Vuuren was extradited, and knew that he was going to “get what he deserved”.
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Before concluding his testimony, Venter took out a laminated A4 page and asked the court if he could read a letter to Jansen van Vuuren.
“Thank you very much for honouring us with your presence. Thank you very much for fleeing. You did yourself a huge favour by fleeing the country. The long arm of justice has tracked you down.
“You know how I felt and now you know that. I have no sympathy for you and your parents. Not you nor your parents can compensate my wife and me for the murder of Andrea, our child.
“My wife died because of the heartache that you caused when you killed Andrea. In fact, you are responsible for killing my wife as well – that means two murders,” he read.
During cross-examination, Jansen van Vuuren’s lawyer Francois Joubert argued that when his client was at Sterkfontein for evaluation, he had showed remorse and was “very sorry” and sad for what he had done.
However, Venter said he did not see that Jansen van Vuuren was remorseful, and that “no money in the world can bring her back”.
Joubert also told Venter that Jansen van Vuuren sympathised with their loss and had expressed his wishes to be able to talk to them to show them that he was “truly remorseful”.
“It would really help if he could tell me why he murdered Andrea,” Venter responded.
Joubert told the court that Jansen van Vuuren had no recollection of the incident.
“It is just too easy for him to have forgotten about the incident,” Venter replied.
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