Willem Olivier and Kelvin Vlok. (Photo: NPA)
Willem Olivier and Kelvin Vlok were sentenced in the Worcester regional court to 42 years of direct imprisonment for the gruesome murder of Vlok’s employer, a 77-year-old farmer’s wife, in 2023.
Eric Ntabazalila, spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), says a co-accused of Olivier and Vlok, who was a minor at the time of the murder of Christina Walters from the farm Papkuil in Ceres, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison.
All three men were declared unfit to own a firearm.
The state also charged Olivier (52), Vlok (24) and the 20-year-old co-accused with aggravated robbery, illegal possession of a firearm and illegal possession of ammunition.
Ntabazalila says the state has proven that on March 4, 2023, Olivier asked Vlok and the minor to accompany him to the farm to clarify a wage issue with Walters.
When they arrived at the farm, Olivier asked Walters for two cigarettes, and when she returned with the cigarettes, the three grabbed her, dragged her outside and tied a belt and barbed wire around her hands and neck. As she lay, they repeatedly kicked her all over her body.
Olivier instructed Vlok to collect valuable items in the house, while he and the minor stayed with Walters.
Vlok returned with groceries, alcohol, a mobile phone, four firearms and ammunition. The men each took a firearm and shot at Walters. They left the farm with their loot and went to Olivier’s house on Klein Papkuil farm. Vlok and the minor drove a donkey cart into a field where they hid the firearms and ammunition.
The police arrested the accused after following up information. Ntabazalila says the men cooperated with the police and pointed out the firearms. The minor pleaded guilty to the crimes they committed. The accused entered into a plea and sentence agreement with the state after they made confessions.
Olivier and Vlok were sentenced to 12 years direct imprisonment for murder with aggravating circumstances, 30 years for murder, 10 years for illegal possession of firearms and 10 years for illegal possession of ammunition. The sentences for illegal possession of firearms and ammunition will be served concurrently.
The 20-year-old was sentenced under Article 71 of the Children’s Rights Act to 10 years of direct imprisonment for robbery with aggravating circumstances, 20 years for murder, of which five years were suspended for five years on the condition that he does not commit an offense of violence against someone else during the period of suspension. He was sentenced to a further five years for the illegal possession of a firearm and a further five years for the illegal possession of ammunition on the same condition.