Johan Kotze (criminal)

Johan Kotze was born in Namibia in 1961 and attended Wennie du Plessis High School in Gobabis. Kotze’s biological parents seemingly died when he was very young and he grew up in a "good home" after being adopted. A woman from Hentiesbaai initially looked after him until he was adopted. He was adopted by a farmer surnamed Kotze. The Kotzes later moved to Prieska in the Northern Cape in South Africa and later he reportedly worked as a sheriff of the court. Kotze was nicknamed MacGyver by people while he lived in Northern Cape because of his "slippery character" - his ability to commit some of the most heinous acts in society but rarely took accountability for it, including the alleged murders of two old women in 1990 and 1993. MacGyver was a TV character in the 1980s who had an uncanny ability to escape from troubles or dangerous situations.[5] Kotze bought shares in a farm near Jagersfontein in the Free State after leaving Prieska following the death of his adoptive father. Disagreements caused the deal to end in drama when a high court ordered that Kotze return 366 sheep to the farm-owners. Soon after that, Kotze bought a farm near Bloemfontein and farmed sheep and buck.[6] His currently known child, a daughter, Jo-Marie Kotze, was born in 1995 from one of Kotze's previous marriages. Kotze had got married altleast five times in his life, including with one woman in Bloemfontein named Sarita Venter, whom he met in 2008 and who ended up committing suicide in November 2010 because of emotional abuse. Kotze owed her over R1-million[7]

Ina Bonette and Johan Kotze got married in October 2010. In 2011 Bonette left Kotze after the two broke up but twice she visited Kotze's house in Modimolle to fetch her belongings. On 3 January 2012, she went to Kotze's house again after Kotze had phoned her about a box that still had her belongings. On arrival, Bonette said she asked for water from Kotze while they stood outside his house and talked. Her car had parked outside Kotze's gate. After giving her a glass of water, Kotze convinced her to come inside the house. Once inside, he led her to one of the rooms and immediately pulled a towel over her head, and threw her onto the bed. Three black men, Andries Sithole, Pieta Mohlake and Frans Mphaka, who were hiding in a cupboard, suddenly appeared in the room. Screaming and kicking, Kotze sat on her and called for the two of the three men to come help him.[8]

State witness, Dirk van der Merwe, a friend of Kotze and who helped the cops arrest him,[9] testified in November 2012 that on the morning of 3 January 2012 he had coffe at Kotze's house. Van der Merwe owns the property where Kotze stayed and in which Ina Bonette was tortured and raped, and her son killed. He said after coffee he left and Kotze phoned him at around 11am and told him that he had an appointment with Bonette for later that afternoon and were going to "talk things through". He asked Van der Merwe to not come to his house, because he said he needed “alone time” with Bonette.[10]

Van der Merwe further testified that Kotze cried over the phone and told him that he no longer wanted to live. Before his appointment, Kotze phoned Van der Merwe again and asked him to remove the palm trees in front of the house. He told Van der Merwe to not worry about labour as he had stopped three black men in the street to help him do the job. Two of the men went with Van der Merwe to re-plant the palms somewhere else, but Kotze insisted that one man called Andries Sithole should stay with him while the two others went with Van der Merwe. Kotze repeatedly begged Van der Merwe to bring the other two men to his house once work was done, according to Van der Merwe's testimony.[11]

In November 2012, Bonette told the Pretoria High Court that she was tied with ropes already fastened to the window bars and bed. Her mouth was taped shut so tightly that she could produce no sound at all when she tried to scream and breathed hard. "He kept on throwing insults. He said today you're going to feel what it's like to be f**d by k***rs. He said he had to sell his farm in Bloemfontein for a whore. He said myself, my father and my son Conrad had belittled him. The more I shook my head to show that it was not true the more he assaulted me," an emotional Bonette said when giving testimony in court.[12]

It was also revealed in court that one of the men, Andries Sithole, helped Kotze remove her pants while Kotze was holding her tightly against the bed and hitting her. She said she was tortured with nails, screwdrivers, pliers and a grinder before Kotze and the three helpers took turns in raping her - repeatedly. Kotze continued to torture her with a plier and a long silver object, twisting her one nipple with the plier, cutting off her other nipple while telling her that she ruined his life. Bonette said she begged the three men to help her using the movement of her eyes but they continued to inflict pains on her. Her breasts were mutilated. [13] She was subjected to torture for close to 3 hours.

"Then he came to lie next to me and told me over and over how much he loved me and how I had ruined his life. He pushed the firearm against my head and said when my child arrived he was going to bring him into the room and force him to have sex with me. If that did not work he would shoot him," Bonette told the Pretoria High Court as she wiped away tears.

Kotze took Ina Bonette's cellphone and called her son Conrad Bonette, his step-son, who was at a gym around town with a friend called Marthinus Cloete, who also testified in court about what he saw on 3 January 2012 when his friend was shot dead by Kotze while his mother was being raped and tortured. When Conrad received the call from Kotze, Kotze asked him to come to his home as he wanted to discuss something with him. When Cloete testified in court on 20 November 2012, he told the Judge that Conrad thought it was strange that Kotze had phoned him using his mother's phone because they had separated. He accompanied him to Kotze's house and a "friendly" Kotze greeted them when he saw them outside the door. The two saw Bonette's car was parked outside Kotze's gate.Kotze separated Cloete and Conrad by asking Cloete to go to the garage to fetch a crate while Conrad followed his stepfather into the house. Cloete told the court that he searched for about 10 minutes but could not find any crate and when he wanted to return to the house he heard that there was a car that was leaving the property and he realised that Kotze’s car was no longer parked outside. He called Conrad as he stood at the door but nobody answered.[14]

Bonette herself in November 2012 testified that she heard when her son came to the property and when Kotze killed him. Kotze went to him after he heard he had entered the property, the three men followed him leaving Bonette fastened on the window bars and bed. Kotze walked "down the passage" and lethally shot at Conrad. "I heard my child saying 'No uncle, please don't!', and then a shot. Then again 'No uncle, please don't!' and a shot, and another shot," she told the court. Kotze shot Conrad three times - in the face, chest and knee - and he died on the spot.[15]

Dirk van der Merwe's wife, Vivienne, who is also Bonette's friend, arrived and asked where everyone was. Cloete who was still standing outside answered that he did not know and Vivienne went outside the premises to make a phone call while Cloete walked in "down the passage" of Kotze's house, and saw a movement through one of the bedroom doors. He called Vivienne Van der Merwe and they both walked down the passage – he went to one room and she went to another. “I saw [my friend] lying on his side in the room. I also saw blood. I went to the room where I noticed movement and saw Van der Merwe busy untying Auntie Ina. She also untied herself from the ropes [fastened] to the window. I helped her to untie [herself] and told her Conrad was next door. She rushed there. She came out and said: ‘He killed my son. Get me out of here!’”. The three went to the Modimolle police station, and was then rushed to hospital soon after that, where she spent eight days undergoing operations across her body as well as being placed on anti-HIV medication.[16]

Johan Kotze was arrested on 12 January 2012 at the house of his friend Dirk van der Merwe in Drie Hekke's Schoeman street.

After being on the run for eight days, the bruised, exhausted and bleeding Kotze finally made his way to the house of Van der Merwe to seek "help". Van der Merwe was a member of an armed neighborhood watch group that worked with police in hunting Kotze and his cellphone was radioed to the cops.

The night before, Tuesday 11 January 2012, Kotze had crashed his white Toyota Fortuner after being spotted by members of the public trying to buy food at Modimolle's Duggans Supermarket and Bakery. Kotze raced off at high speed, but with rain pouring hard Kotze lost control of the car and crashed into a tree. Community members began chasing him but the dark night and violent storm made it impossible for them to find him as he galloped through the bush, hurting himself.[17]Police rushed to the area where Kotze crashed his vehicle. They seized the car and in it found blankets, clothes, newspaper clippings of articles of himself being wanted, money in cash and a small gas stove he apparently used for cooking. Just closer from the scene of the crash, police found Kotze's hideout with broken tree branches, empty water bottles, leftovers of food, discarded pieces of toilet papers and supermarket plastics.

The following day - midday - Kotze quietly went to Van der Merwe's house after being able to flee from his night pursuers.

Van der Merwe said he was very scared when he saw Kotze outside his house and thought that Kotze would kill him too, because when he looked at him he couldn’t believe it was the same person he always knew all these years.

"It looked as though he hadn’t slept for days. He was filthy and shaking like a leaf. He could barely stand. I couldn't believe it. I was terrified. When I saw him, he said he wanted to talk, that he wanted help. When he said that, I immediately knew that I had to phone the police. I thought he was going to kill me,” Van der Merwe told The Star newspaper after Kotze's arrest on 12 January 2012.[18]

The Pretoria High Court on 17 July 2013 sentenced Kotze and Andries Sithole to life imprisonment for the murder of Conrad Bonette while their co-accused, Pieta Mohlake and Frans Mphaka, were acquitted on the murder charge. However the court found all four guilty of rape, assault and kidnapping and were sentenced in the following way -

• Johan Kotze - Murder (life imprisonment), Rape (life imprisonment), Kidnapping (10 years), Assault (15 years)

• Andries Sithole - Murder (life imprisonment), Rape (life imprisonment), Kidnapping (10 years), Assault (8 years)

• Pieta Mohlake - Rape (life imprisonment), Kidnapping (10 years), Assault (15 years)

• Frans Mphaka - Rape (life imprisonment), Kidnapping (10 years), Assault (8 years)[19]

They were first found quilty on 15 July 2013 and then sentenced two days later.[20]

Johan Kotze took the stand at the Pretoria High Court in April 2013 and testified that he caught his wife Ina Bonette cheating. He told Judge Bert Bum that he saw Bonnette with another man at a dance on New Year’s Eve in 2011. Kotze said they had a "happy marriage" but broke up several times since they tied the knot in October 2010, and stayed in different homes. He said Bonette and the man hugged and kissed before leaving the dance hall and he followed them to see where they would go, and they went to Bonette's house. He added that he was emotionally pained by this and vented his anger on his daughter's cat that he found sleeping on his bed on that night. "I very aggressively threw [the cat] away from me,” he said on 16 April 2013, while wiping away tears.[21] Bonette was present in court. She shook her head while Kotze testified. Kotze said he obtained a protection order against Bonnette after their second split, but on 19 November 2010, just a month after they got married, he went back to Bonette to ask for forgiveness. They also discussed the possibility of renting a house together, according to Kotze. On 1 January 2012 he said he phoned Bonette and also saw her in town and told her they needed to talk about what happened on New Year’s Eve. But when they met again on 3 January 2012 he was still "terribly upset" and that's how he apparently decided to inflict pains on her.[22] Kotze's matriculant 18-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, Jo-Marie Kotze, testified that she had spent the Christmas period with her father and had an arrangement to visit him again on 3 January 2012. She said a day or so before the 3 January 2012 incident her father called and narrated a story to her about how he had caught Ina Bonette with another man. He loved her very much, was very disappointed and was extremely hurt she did that to him. She said she advised him to end the marriage with Ina Bonette so that they could move on with their lives and her father sounded like someone who agreed to it. After testifying against her father, she began crying and sobbed when she hugged him while father consoled daughter in his arms while also closer to shedding tears.[23]

Johan Kotze's lawyer Piet Greyling asked that the court should not hold Kotze accountable for the torture and rape of Ina Bonette and her son Conrad's murder as he had psychological problems. Psychologist Tertia Spannenberg was called by Kotze's lawyer to testify on his behalf on 3 July 2013, and said Kotze was a depressed someone with a psychological condition known as "narcissistic personality disorder" as well as "acute stress disorder", which made him to disconnect with reality. He was obsessed with Bonette and when he saw him with another man on the New Year's Eve, it caused trauma which led to stress disorder. Spannenberg said this worsened during an argument on 3 January 2012 when Bonette put a vibrator on Kotze's table and disrespectfully told him to use it on his next wife. Spannenberg interviewed and observed him for about 4 hours at the Kgosi Mampuru II Maximum Security Prison[24]

However, another psychologist, Cobus Coetzee, who was called by Prosecutor Retha Meintjes on behalf of the state testified that Kotze did not suffer from any mental disorder and should account for Bonette's torture and rape as well as Conrad's murder. Coetzee formed part of a team of three psychologists who observed Kotze at the Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital in Pretoria for two months. The other two also found that Kotze was of sound mind and was aware of the wrongfulness of his actions. [25][26]

Kotze's close friend Dirk van der Merwe, who helped the police find him on 12 January 2012 after Kotze came to his house to seek "help", said his friend deserved a death sentence than the two life sentences that was handed down by the South African high court on 17 July 2013. Van der Merwe also testified about an incident over the festive period of 2011 when Kotze took another woman called Lizette on a holiday trip with him. While happy and river rafting with Kotze, the woman is said to have allegedly been hit with an oar by Kotze and the romantic relationship ended just there.[27]

Another psychological expert, Professor Dap Louw from the University of the Free State told Mail and Guardian's journalist Faranaaz Parker that Kotze fit the profile of a “five-star, violent and sadistic psychopath” and that his life was “characterised by manipulation” of others. Louw said if the state were to call him to come give an expert's view in Kotze's case he would "definitely recommend that he should be [jailed] for life". Another expert, Professor Christiaan Bezuidenhout from the University of Pretoria's criminology department, said people like Kotze have no place in society, they deserve to be locked for life because they will repeat the crime again. “An individual like this will do it again,“ Bezuidenhout told the journalist. "There’s no programme [of rehabilitation] that will help this individual,” the professor added. Bezuidenhout differed with Kotze's lawyer Piet Greyling who argued in court that his client should not be held accountable for the crime as he had psychological problems. “Psychopathy is not a mental illness so the courts will not take that into consideration as a mitigating factor. He still has the ability to distinguish between right and wrong. He knew what he was doing,” said Bezuidenhout.[28]

• Love is war - The Modimolle Monster