Hannah Cornelius’s Killers Get Two Life Terms Each

Public gallery erupts into cheers as gang-rapists who killed South African student Hannah Cornelius are jailed for life and judge accuses them of ‘violating her dignity and humanity’

By Khaleda Rahman, Sebastian Murphy-bates, Sara Malm, and Julian Robinson, Daily Mail, November 12, 2018

The thugs who gang-raped and murdered South African student Hannah Cornelius have been jailed for life — sparking cheers in the court’s public gallery.

Geraldo Parsons, 27, Vernon Witbooi, 33, and Eben van Niekerk, 28, were found guilty of Hannah’s rape and murder, as well as the kidnap, robbery and attempted murder of her friend Cheslin Marsh last week.

All three career criminals were sentenced to two life terms each for Hannah’s rape and murder at Western Cape High Court on Monday. Witbooi and Parsons were also both handed 25 years for attempted murder, 15 years each for four counts of robbery and 10 years for kidnapping.

Van Niekerk was also sentenced to 20 years for attempted murder, 20 years for robbery, 10 years for kidnapping Hannah and Cheslin, eight years for kidnapping another woman, Mimi October.

A fourth man, Nashville Julius, 29, was sentenced to 15 years for two counts of robbery and seven years for kidnapping. His sentence will run concurrently.

Judge Rosheni Allie delivered a scathing appraisal of the men on Monday, telling the court that none of them had showed ‘true remorse’ for their crimes, News 24 reports.

As she delivered their sentences, a large crowd of supporters in the public gallery erupted into cheers. They applauded, taunted the killers and chanted ‘Justice!’ as they were hauled back into their holding cells following the hearing.

Witbooi stared and shook his head as they shouted ‘gangsters’ and ‘viva high court’ at the men in the dock, Times Live reports.

Many of the people in the public gallery were from organisations set up after the violent deaths of women and children in Cape Town.

Hannah, 21, was raped, killed and her body was dumped in the middle of a road after she and her friend Cheslin, 22, were carjacked in Stellenbosch after a night out with friends on May 27 last year.

Tragically, both her mother and grandmother died in the 10 months following her murder.

Cheslin was battered with bricks and left for dead by the attackers. He survived the brutal assault, which left him deaf in one ear.

He attended Monday’s hearing shortly after being fitted with a new hearing aid worth R18,000 (£970). His mother Marilyn told News 24: ‘He heard everything the judge said. Clearly.’

‘I’m just relieved that justice has been served. I can’t describe how I feel — I am just happy,’ he told the website.

Cheslin also he finally met Hannah’s family during sentencing proceedings last week.

‘Hannah’s father told me: ‘Don’t worry Cheslin. Everything will be okay. You will study next year again. This won’t hold you back.”’

Judge Allie condemned the men for keeping Hannah with them after leaving Cheslin behind because it showed they wanted ‘to take full advantage of her.’

She said the brutal rape violated Hannah’s ‘privacy, dignity and humanity’ and the manner in which they preyed on the young student was the ‘crudest and cruellest form of violence.’

Judge Allie said the men had put her into her vehicle’s boot after raping her and she must have resisted because she was in pain.

She added that throwing a rock on her to kill her was ‘vengeful and vicious.’

The judge said she had weighed all of the convicted men’s roles in the attack, their previous convictions and their personal circumstances.

She said none of their circumstances were extenuating enough to warrant deviating from the prescribed minimum sentence.

Under South African law, prisoners serving life sentences must be given parole hearings after 25 years.

Parole is often granted to prisoners after the minimum sentence for the lesser crime has been served, which for murders, rapes and robberies is after serving 25, 15 and 10 years respectively.

The judge said the Cornelius family has been torn apart, while Cheslin suffered extreme trauma and wasn’t able to continue his studies.

It was earlier revealed that the four abductors made Hannah sit between the front seats of her Volkswagen Citi Golf as they went on an 11-hour crime spree starting in the early hours of May 27 last year.

They took her to an isolated spot where they raped her before stabbing her in the neck and dropping a rock on her head.

They carried on their rampage, a video from TimesLIVE revealed and went on to attack another two women.

A combination of CCTV footage and police interviews titled ’11 Hours, 4 Victims, 1 Hell Ride’ shows how the men held a screwdriver to Hannah’s breast as they commandeered her vehicle at about 3.30am.

After killing her, they chased a woman as she walked to work in Kraaifontein and stolen her bag as well as her phone.

They kidnapped the victim and Witbooi drew out 3,000 rand (£161) from her account while she was in the back of the car.

She was freed close to the site where Hannah was raped. The group then attacked another woman.

The video surfaced after Hannah’s father, Willem Cornelius told the court his wife, Anna, became a ‘shadow of herself’ after their daughter was killed following a night out.

Addressing the court where he faced his daughter’s killers, Mr Cornelius said his ‘family died with Hannah’.

He said ‘no-one really knows’ what happened when his 56-year-old wife — once ‘the strongest and most competent person I have ever met’ — decided to go swimming ‘in the ice-cold and stormy Atlantic Ocean’.

But he added: ‘I do not believe that she committed suicide… but what I do believe is that she did not have the physical or mental strength left to counter any difficulties that she may have experienced.’

In his heartbreaking appearance in court, Mr Cornelius said the effect of his daughter’s death on the family was ‘beyond devastating’.

More than a year after her death, he said Hannah’s younger brother, who is autistic, still asks him when his sister is coming home from holiday.

‘Me and my son are not a family — we are the survivors who live in the ruins of what once was,’ Mr Cornelius said.

According to TimesLive, Mrs Cornelius’ body was found off Scarborough on the Cape Peninsula after she went for her daily swim at 7am.

A colleague with the Hannah Cornelius Foundation — set up in Hannah’s name — said Mrs Cornelius ‘had been quite ill’.

Foundation CEO Lily Reed said at the time: ‘She had flu and a chest throat infection the whole week before. I think that added to it.’

Rescuers said they expected she had drowned. Once a magistrate, Mr Cornelius told the court he did not believe he had the impartiality to continue in the role after what had happened to his daughter.

Earlier, her aunt, Professor Eleanor Cornelius slammed the attackers for smiling throughout the case ‘like they had only gotten up to mischief’.

Cheslin Marsh’s mother also took the stand and spoke directly to the men in the dock.

Marilyn Marsh said: ‘Who does something like that to a person? My son did nothing to you.’

Witbooi, whom the judge revealed has a violent criminal record going back 19 years, was also filmed giving a camera a ‘thumbs up’ as he left Western Cape Court.

The court heard that Parsons had a tattoo on his body saying ‘f**k the cops’ and another saying ‘hungry for money, thirsty for blood’.

Another shows a baboon with a woman’s face with its legs open, the court was told, according to News24.

Parsons had previously told the court during the trial that the quartet had only intended on stealing Ms Cornelius’ car and that the incident spiralled after they saw the two students still inside.

He said the desperate student had bargained with them, agreeing to let the men sexually assault her — as long as they let her live.

However, several of the men brutally raped her, after which they threw her into the boot of her own car, and drove her to a secluded spot where they murdered her.

Four men are seen surrounded Ms Cornelius’ VW Golf, parked outside the block of flats where Mr Marsh lived.

Mr Marsh says they had ended up chatting in the car, and were interrupted by a man putting a screwdriver to Ms Cornelius’ chest through the open window.

They were forced out of the car, after which Mr Marsh was robbed of cash and his phone and locked in the car boot.

The four men forced Ms Cornelius to get back into the car with them, after which they drove to a drug dealer’s home to smoke crystal meth, before they drove out of Stellenbosch and pulled over near a local vineyard.

They reportedly dragged Mr Marsh out of the boot and made him lay his head on a rock on the ground before battering his skull with bricks until they thought he was dead.

Mr Marsh recovered consciousness the following day, and staggered to a nearby home suffering severe head injuries and a broken arm to raise the alarm about Ms Cornelius.

Unknown to him her body had been found just hours earlier, dumped by the roadside.

After the rape and murder of Ms Cornelius, the gang went on a crime spree in the hijacked car, robbing at least three women before the stolen car was spotted and a high speed police chase began.

Three were arrested after dumping the car and fleeing and the fourth was arrested later.