During the trial of Nicolette and Hardus Lotter, and her boyfriend, Matthew Naidoo, for the murder of the siblings’ parents a court in South Africa heard the motive for the double murder was to get a share of the inheritance.
State prosecutor Rea Mima said they also planned to kill the parents so the boyfriend, Mathew Naidoo, could stay on in the house in Thames Avenue, Westville, Durban.
The Independent Online adds that
[Matthew Naidoo] told his girlfriend and her brother how to kill her parents and that it was God’s will they should die, according to statements made to police.
Nicolette Lotter, 29, stabbed her mother, Maria Magdelena.
Lotter, 52, while her brother Hardus, now 23, strangled their father, Johannes Lotter, 53, with an electrical cord.
According to statements handed to the court on Monday, Nicolette said Naidoo had told them he was the “third son of God… that he had an angel and demon in him and that he was a vessel of God through which angel and demons could speak. “We believed Naidoo hook, line and sinker,” Nicolette said.
The trial started on Monday at the Durban High Court, with the State calling Detective Inspector Justice Jabulani Duma, the first of 22 witnesses expected to give evidence.
Hardus told Duma that two men invaded their home, locked him in his room and then killed his parents. He said the cuts on his hands were as a result of the scuffle with the men.
However, in a confession submitted to the court, Nicolette said: “We spoke about what we had to do. I will admit that both my brother and I believed that Mathew is the third son of God.” Nicolette said the three had discussed and agreed to Naidoo’s plan to kill her parents using a Taser and syringe, to inject air into their veins to induce a heart attack.
The three pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder but Hardus – who has gained weight and has begun to lose his hair since his first court appearance as a tall, handsome young man more than two years ago – claimed that he lacked criminal capacity when he allegedly murdered his parents.
His lawyer, Roland Parsotham, said he had been subjected to “extreme coercive persuasion” by Naidoo. […]
The siblings allegedly strangled their father and bludgeoned their mother after shocking her with an electric stun gun and unsuccessfully trying to inject air into her veins to kill her.
Duma said Hardus told him that two men wearing balaclavas arrived at the Lotter home in a blue VW Golf car. He said that they entered the house, assaulted him and locked him in his bedroom while they killed his parents.
Nicolette, Duma said, told him that she came home from the Pavilion shopping centre to find her parents dead and her brother locked in his room. She then called Naidoo, whom she had just taken to Westville, to contact the police.