A 79-year-old woman involved in hiring a hit man to kill her love interest's wife has been admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
|||Cape Town - The grandmother involved in hiring a hit man to kill her love interest’s wife seven years ago has been declared a patient of the state and admitted to Lentegeur Psychiatric Hospital.
Sophia de Villiers, 79, of Fish Hoek, was admitted into the psychiatric institution after a lengthy court battle with the State.
De Villiers’s attorney, William Booth, told the Cape Argus on Monday that her case was brought to court before her scheduled appearance in the Wynberg Regional Court on Friday.
Acting on the instruction of De Villiers’s family, Booth said that he had withdrawn the review application pending in the Western Cape High Court.
Booth had taken magistrate Karel Meyer’s decision that De Villiers was involved in the incident on review.
De Villiers was found to have hired a man known only as Kingston to kill Irene “Nicky” Wilson on March 23, 2006, because she was in love with Irene’s husband, Tony.
Tony Wilson was De Villiers’ bridge instructor before the incident.
During 2010, the court heard evidence that De Villiers kept a pocket diary containing instructions to “Kingston” the “black” man hired to kill Irene Wilson.
Investigating Warrant Officer Christeon Cloete testified that the following notes were among those found in De Villiers’ diary under the heading “Kingston”:
“Stay quiet, tell no one. Not wife. Get strong man. Thursday: Knives. Remove fingerprints afterwards. Don’t run. Leave doors open. Telephones. Don’t shout. Leave knives there.
“Meet (at) library. Don’t come (to) my house. Clean your (finger)nails.”
“Kingston”, who was never arrested, is still on the run.
De Villiers was arrested but was in 2009 declared unfit to stand trial.
Later, during court processes, Meyer made a ruling.
“The court believes De Villiers was involved in the act of attempted murder. To say she was not involved would be wrong.
“The court finds, on the limited evidence available, that De Villiers committed the act in question, namely of attempted murder,” Meyer said in his judgment.
Booth said a curator had been appointed to handle De Villiers’ affairs because she could not do so on her own and her family was living overseas.
Booth added that he would negotiate with authorities at Lentegeur to have De Villiers transferred to a private institution.
jade.otto@inl.co.za
Cape Argus