Casper Kruger was convicted of murdering three men in Johannesburg in March 1991. With a 19-year-old accomplice, and in the first case a third man, he robbed men of their cars, cash and bank access and then killed them so that they could not identify the robbers, according to the findings recorded by South Africa's Appellate Division. A Johannesburg court sentenced him to death three times. The death sentences were later commuted to life imprisonment, and over the years that followed he escaped from custody more than once. He died in April 2006 in the police cells at Pinetown, near Durban, where he had been held for a month under a false name. A police marksman shot him during a hostage standoff, before the authorities holding him had confirmed who he was.
Most of what is known of Kruger's early life comes from the 1994 appeal judgment, which identifies him by his initials as C. J. Kruger, summarizes the personal circumstances placed before the sentencing court. He was 24 in that account. He had grown up in a stable family, did well at primary school, and left school during standard 9, having passed standard 8. His work record was unstable. He had served in the army, reaching the rank of lance corporal, and he had a drinking problem from about the age of 22. His criminal record began when he was 13 and included convictions for housebreaking, theft, car theft and drunk driving, with other charges. The appeal court remarked that deterrence and rehabilitation played no real part in his case.
His co-accused, P. J. E. van der Merwe, named Philip van der Merwe in the 2006 press reports, was 19 and had no previous convictions. A social worker described his home background as ordinary. He said epilepsy had made him leave school in standard 8 and had kept him out of military service. A psychiatric report found no mental illness at the time of the offenses.
All the charges arose from three incidents carried out in the same way, the Appellate Division recorded. In each, a man was robbed of his car and of money or access to his bank accounts and then killed. The court found that the robbers had singled out men they believed to be gay, and that the killings were planned because the robbers could be identified.
The first victim was Adriaan Combrink, a pharmacist, according to the Daily News in Durban, as carried by IOL in 2006; the judgment gives only his surname. He was killed on March 1, 1991. Kruger, Van der Merwe and a third man, Niewenhuis, had decided beforehand to kill him because he could identify them, the judgment says. He was shot. His cheques and cash paid for drink, prostitutes and nightclubs, and Kruger gave his necklace to a friend and passed his car to another acquaintance to repair or sell.
On March 18, 1991, Kruger was arrested after possession of a stolen BMW was traced to him. The judgment records that this was five days before the second and third incidents.
Both of those took place on March 23, 1991, and the court treated them as two separate incidents. Niewenhuis took no part in either. The second victim was Johannes van Loggerenberg, a telephone operator; the judgment spells his surname Van Loggerenberg, while the 2006 press report gave it as Loggienberg. He was stabbed to death. The third victim, Johannes Kruger, a bank manager, was strangled. The judgment does not suggest any relationship between him and the accused, who shared his surname. Money taken from him was shared out, Van der Merwe took his car and its contents, and both cars were later abandoned.
Niewenhuis was arrested on March 25, 1991, Van der Merwe shortly afterward, and Kruger again on March 26. On the night of March 28 to 29, Kruger pointed out to police the places where the bodies were found, and Van der Merwe later made a similar pointing out, according to the judgment.
The 2006 press report gave November 1991 as the month of Kruger's arrest for the murders. The court record shows an earlier step in between: on October 23, 1991, Kruger and Van der Merwe escaped from custody, while Niewenhuis declined to go with them. Both later pleaded guilty to that escape. The judgment does not say where it happened. The 2006 report described an escape before his trial from the holding cells at the Johannesburg Magistrate's Court, made with a blade smuggled in to him.
Niewenhuis was tried separately for the murder and robbery of Combrink, convicted and sentenced. He then gave evidence for the State against the other two. Although he was an accomplice, the trial court accepted his evidence without qualification, and neither appellant challenged that assessment on appeal.
Kruger and Van der Merwe were tried in the Witwatersrand Local Division in Johannesburg before Judge Coetzee, sitting with assessors. The 2006 press report dated the convictions to 1992. Kruger was convicted on all nine counts: three of murder, three of robbery, unlawful possession of a firearm, unlawful possession of ammunition, and escape. For the second and third incidents he called alibi witnesses; the court found that they had conspired to give false evidence. Van der Merwe argued that he had acted under compulsion from Kruger and that he had suffered an epileptic seizure during the first shooting. The trial court rejected the compulsion defense, and his counsel did not pursue the seizure claim on appeal. None of his four statements about the first incident mentioned a seizure, the judgment records.
Kruger received the death sentence on each of the three murder counts, prison terms of 25, 20 and 20 years for the robberies, two years on each of the firearm and ammunition counts, and two years for the escape. The 2006 press report summarized his sentence as three death sentences and 33 years. Van der Merwe was acquitted on the firearm and ammunition counts. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the Combrink murder, to death for the murders of Van Loggerenberg and Kruger, and to prison terms for the robberies and the escape.
Both men appealed to the Appellate Division. The appeal was heard on May 3, 1994, and judgment was delivered on May 24, 1994, by a bench of three, with the judgment written by Judge Harms. The appeals against the convictions were dismissed. The court rejected Van der Merwe's compulsion defense. After his conviction he had written letters from prison claiming that he and Niewenhuis alone had committed the crimes and that Kruger had not been present; the court said that no court would ever accept that new evidence, pointing to his shifting loyalties and alleged promises of leniency.
The court reduced the robbery sentences. Kruger's became 12, 10 and 10 years, with the last two running concurrently. The trial court had found Kruger to be the leading figure in all three incidents; the appeal court said it was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that he had played an exceptional leading role in the killing.
On sentence, the court held that death was the only fitting punishment for Kruger's three murders and that, in his case, the interests of the community were decisive. It reached the same view on Van der Merwe's two death sentences. But the court held that it had no jurisdiction over the constitutional questions raised about the death penalty. It postponed the appeal against the death sentences until the Constitutional Court had ruled.
With the political changes in South Africa, Kruger's death sentences were commuted to three terms of life imprisonment and 22 years, IOL reported in 2006. The report described two more escapes. In May 1997 he broke out of Pretoria Central Prison with Jano Nortje, a prisoner known in the press as the suitcase killer, and eight years were added to his sentence. Later he escaped from a clinic to which he had been taken after he complained of being ill. When that happened, and how he came to be living in KwaZulu-Natal, has not been made public.
Shortly before his arrest, a woman told Pinetown police that a man she had met to discuss what he called a business deal had threatened her with a gun and held her against her will; she freed herself and went to the police, Pinetown police communications officer Debbie O'Brien said. A few days later, on March 8, 2006, Kruger was arrested on a hijacking charge. He gave his name as Jacques du Plessis. His fingerprints were sent for analysis when he was booked in, but results of that kind often took six to eight weeks.
Shortly before his death he appeared in the Pinetown Magistrate's Court for a bail hearing. The court was not satisfied that the police had properly established his identity and remanded him to April 14.
On a Sunday in April 2006 a food parcel was delivered to him in the cells. A woman thought to be his girlfriend had been seen several times in a silver car with two other men, and Captain Karen Middleborough grew suspicious and ordered his cell searched. Kruger was armed when the officers went in. In the exchange of fire that followed, Inspector Eric Maphri was seriously wounded and Captain Middleborough was also hurt. Kruger took four police officers and several prisoners hostage. Sharpshooters were called, negotiations failed, and a single shot from a police marksman killed him.
A source told the Daily News that senior officers at the scene were very angry. The police spokesman, Director Bala Naidoo, said an investigation had begun into how a gun had been smuggled into the cells. He said the police wanted to speak to the girlfriend but would not jump to conclusions, and he declined to say more about Kruger because the investigation was at a sensitive stage. The woman declined to comment. It was not known when the police had realized that the man in their cells was not Jacques du Plessis. On April 13, 2006, IOL reported that the Pinetown hostage taker had been identified as Casper Kruger, the convicted Johannesburg murderer.
March 1, 1991: Adriaan Combrink is robbed and killed in Johannesburg.
March 18, 1991: Kruger is arrested after a stolen BMW is traced to him.
March 23, 1991: Johannes van Loggerenberg and Johannes Kruger are robbed and killed in two separate incidents.
March 25 to 26, 1991: Niewenhuis, Van der Merwe and Kruger are arrested; on the night of March 28 to 29 Kruger points out the bodies to police.
October 23, 1991: Kruger and Van der Merwe escape from custody.
November 1991: Kruger is arrested for the murders, according to the 2006 press report.
1992: Kruger and Van der Merwe are convicted in the Witwatersrand Local Division; Kruger is sentenced to death on three counts.
May 24, 1994: The Appellate Division dismisses the appeals against conviction, reduces the robbery terms and postpones the death sentence appeal pending the Constitutional Court.
Date not reported: The death sentences are commuted to three life terms and 22 years.
May 1997: Kruger escapes from Pretoria Central Prison with Jano Nortje; eight years are added to his sentence.
Date not reported: He escapes from a clinic.
March 8, 2006: Arrested in Pinetown on a hijacking charge as Jacques du Plessis.
April 2006: Remanded to April 14 at a bail hearing; on the following Sunday he takes officers and prisoners hostage in the Pinetown police cells and is shot dead by a police marksman.
April 13, 2006: IOL reports that the hostage taker was Casper Kruger.