Each room told a gruesome story’: Mom shares letter to Sizzlers Massacre killer as family petitions for law change.
The family of Robert Visser has pleaded with President Cyril Ramaphosa and justice minister Ronald Lamola to consider changing laws that allow violent offenders to qualify for parole after just over 12 years in prison. 17 March 2021 – Aron Hyman Reporter
Eighteen years ago, Marlene Visser silently walked through a home in Cape Town, taking in the devastation. It was in this house that her son, Robert Visser, was brutally killed. In 2003, Woest and Trevor Theys tied up, shot, and slit the throats of nine men — Aubrey Otgaar, Sergio de Castro, Marius Meyer, Travis Reade, Timothy Boyd, Stephanus Fouche, Johan Meyer, Robert Visser, and Gregory Berghau — at Sizzlers, a gay massage parlour in Sea Point.
One man, Quinton Taylor, survived.
Both men were sentenced for the nine murders in 2004 but, according to Visser’s family, they were informed that Woest was a potential candidate for release from prison.
Correctional services department spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo confirmed to TimesLIVE that Woest was serving nine life sentences for the nine counts of murder, as well as attempted murder, robbery and possession of ammunition.
He confirmed that Woest did qualify for parole as many as five years ago, but didn’t meet the qualifying criteria and was still behind bars.
“The offender was sentenced on March 16 2004 and therefore was due to be considered for parole on March 16 2016. As per the applicable law at the time, his minimum detention period is 12 years and four months.
“He did not satisfy all the requirements at the time of consideration for parole placement as per the departmental prescripts. As it is, the offender is still incarcerated and will remain behind bars until he meets all the requirements to be placed on parole,” he said. Nxumalo said that Woest would be “considered again” for parole “when he has satisfied all the requirements and was ready for social reintegration”.
“To be succinct, offenders do not apply to be placed on parole, but qualify for consideration when they reach their minimum detention period,” said Nxumalo.
Visser’s sister, Leigh, and Marlene started a petition on Change.org to prevent “serial rapists” and “mass murderers” like Woest’s early release. The family is now based in Canada.
Marlene declined a phone interview, saying the massacre and her son’s death took “a terrible toll” on her health. Instead, she sent TimesLIVE one of many letters she has penned in her diary addressed to Woest — but none of which she ever mustered the courage to send to him. The full letter, unedited, is at the bottom of this story. Marlene said she did visit Woest and Theys in prison shortly after they were sentenced in an effort to get some answers. In Theys, she said, she saw humanity and remorse. But with Woest, she found only emptiness.
Sizzlers murder accused Trevor Theys leaves the high court in Cape Town after a court appearance in March 2004. Archive photo. Image: Terry Shean / Sunday Times
“I was venting in my letter to Woest with no intention of ever sending it to him. I usually do that,” said Visser. “I needed an outlet, I needed to detoxify the situation regarding Woest, so that I could process my thoughts properly, and I can think clearly without my life being affected negatively by anger and bitterness.”
This, she said, allows her to “make allowances for others”.
“In doing so, I find it’s easier to forgive them,” she said.
In the letter, written just this week, she says she will never forget the devastation as she walked through the Sizzlers crime scene.
“It was quiet as I moved from room to room. The ear-deafening silence painful, as it echoed in the dark and dingy rooms. The stench of death, petrol, and blood hanging in the air. I dropped to my knees, and wept as I thought of the trauma, the anguish, and torment that our children must have gone through in their final hours.
“What twisted and diabolical monsters would inflict such pain and suffering on 10 defenceless victims — all gagged, bound, and petrified!?!
“Each room told a gruesome story of pain, suffering, fear, torment, horror — blood spattered across the walls, carpets, cupboards … My heart ached as I saw my son’s boots under one of the beds. Boots that I’d bought him for his birthday. [They were] covered in blood,” she wrote.
Marlene added that she did not believe Woest was rehabilitated.
“I do not believe that you can ever rehabilitate, even if you wanted to because your personality … your psyche does not allow for rehabilitation, or to reform, or for you to conform to the norm,” she wrote. She was critical of the supposed early release.
“You were given multiple life-sentences yet you’re being released early on parole for ‘good behaviour’, etc, after only serving a few years of your sentence. This is absolutely ridiculous. Good behaviour in prison shouldn’t be rewarded with early parole. A gold star or lollipop would be more apt in this instance … but definitely not early parole.
“After all, in a controlled environment like prison there are none of the temptations, pressures, or opportunities that you’d find ‘out there’ in society driving you to torture, torment, and murder innocent people — or to take from others what doesn’t belong to you,” she writes.
Marlene also takes a dig at Woest.
She ends her letter with: “PS. Lastly, Mr Woest, for everyone’s sake — don’t forget to sign my daughter Leigh’s petition opposing your early parole.”
Change the laws that allow these menaces to society the possibility of early parole. I ask specifically that you stop any possibility, any chance, of Adam Woest obtaining parole for early release.
Extract from the petition
That petition — which by 9pm Monday night had just shy of 900 signatures — calls on President Cyril Ramaphosa and justice minister Ronald Lamola to look into the Correctional Services Act, which “allows mass murderers like Adam Woest, serial rapists and killers to walk the streets of a country plagued by heinous crime”.
“Change the laws that allow these menaces to society the possibility of early parole. I ask specifically that you stop any possibility, any chance, of Adam Woest obtaining parole for early release,” reads an extract from the petition.
Leigh also asks that laws are revisited so that “serial rapists and killers get to serve multiple life sentences consecutively and not concurrently”.
Source: Times Live – each-room-told-a-gruesome-story-mom- family-petitions-for-law-change
Killers cannot be rehabilitated, says Gauteng woman who dated parolee
Fiancé ‘snapped one day’, killed her daughter and stabbed her
25 May 2021 – 15:56 By ernest mabuza
Ernest Mabuza Journalist
Bettina-Ann Coke with her daughter Adrianne. They trusted the man who attacked them at home – a murderer on parole.
Image: Bettina-Ann Coke via Facebook
Bettina-Ann Coke was close to marrying her fiancé, who was a murderer on parole at the time, when he “just snapped” one morning and stabbed her and her 21-year-old daughter, who died. Charles Barker had been convicted of murder in 2005 after killing someone who owed him money and was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
The prosecution appealed against his sentence but the Supreme Court of Appeal increased it to 20 years in 2006. However, Barker was released on parole in June 2015 after serving half his sentence. His parole would have stretched until March 2025.
Coke met Barker soon after his release when he moved in as her neighbour. She started a relationship with Barker three months later. They were engaged eight months later, and subsequently moved into a house together in Benoni during 2016.
“I lived with him for two-and-a-half years before he attacked us [in 2018]. During the time we stayed together, he never physically abused me, in fact he looked after us,” Coke said. Her pain was triggered again when Elhadji Adama Kebe was sentenced to 23 years last week for the murder of his girlfriend Sibongile Zenzile.
Kebe stabbed Zenzile more than 10 times before chopping off her head in May 2019. The High Court in Johannesburg, which sentenced Kebe, said he had shown remorse and regret for what he did and was a good candidate for rehabilitation. He is potentially eligible for release on parole just over 10 years from now.
“I can tell you Kebe was probably coached by somebody to say those things [show remorse],” alleged Coke.
She said she had never thought Barker was a danger and that is why they moved in together.
Her only daughter, Adrianne, looked at Barker as a father figure, she said. They never felt they were in harm’s way.
Having had the experience of living with the person, I thought he was rehabilitated. But one morning he snapped and attacked us.
Bettina-Ann Coke
She said when Barker was released on parole, he was classified as “low risk” by the department of correctional services, meaning he was not a risk to anybody.
After she started her relationship with Barker, she supported him on his monthly visits to his parole officer and all “seemed fine”.
“I loved that man and he looked after me. He had to hop jobs because the minute people found out he was on parole, he would lose his job.”
Coke said the high court, which had sentenced Barker for the murder in 2005, had believed he could be rehabilitated and she believed he was rehabilitated.
“Having had the experience of living with the person, I thought he was rehabilitated. But one morning he snapped and attacked us.”
She said on the morning of the murder on March 5 2018, they woke up as usual. Barker was starting a new job in a company where he had received a company vehicle.
“He said he would not wear his overalls and would wear his pants. He was ironing his pants and suddenly tore them.”
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Coke said when she reprimanded him for what he had done, Barker said: “I have had enough of this relationship.”
Coke said Barker started packing his belongings and preparing to leave the house.
He then packed one of her towels in his luggage. Coke said she took her towel and went to fetch Barker’s towel.
“The next minute, he had his belt around my neck. I asked him to stop. He followed me to the bathroom. My daughter followed us to the bathroom. He said this was not her fight.”
Barker then grabbed both of them and forced them into the bedroom.
He then stabbed Coke and Adrianne four times each.
“His whole demeanour had changed and nothing could stop what he was doing.”
Coke said Barker left the house and stopped an emergency services officer he found on the road. Barker told him a robber had come to the house and stabbed the mother and daughter.
“He was busy cleaning himself and buying cigarettes at a shop not too far from our home when they caught him. He was detained within 20 minutes,” she said.
“I now believe that once you kill, you cannot be rehabilitated.”
Coke said when Barker killed her daughter, “he was not the person I was with for two-and-a-half years”.
Coke said her daughter would have turned 25 on Monday.
When sentencing Barker in October last year, Pretoria high court acting judge Herman Broodryk listed 15 aggravating factors which showed he should serve life in prison, including that he was not a first-time offender, was prone to violence and was on parole when he committed the offence.
Broodryk said Barker was still the same person he was when he was convicted in 2005, had never rehabilitated and probably never would.
He sentenced Barker to 18 years for the attempted murder of Coke, and life imprisonment for the murder of Adrianne.
Source: Times Live – Killers-cannot-be-rehabilitated-says-gauteng-woman-who-dated-parolee