Lethal precedent set in Matthews murder
Published
By Michael Schmidt
Kidnapping for ransom is apparently rare in South Africa and the criminal's motivation is sometimes bizarre, but killing the victim, as Donovan Moodley did to Leigh Matthews - the unsuspecting young woman he saw as his meal-ticket - is unheard of.
Even in the case that bears the greatest similarity to the Matthews kidnapping - and referred to in the state's case against Moodley - that of pretty Rena Pitsiladis, then 18, kidnapped on March 1999 and held for R2-million ransom, she was found alive after a nine-hour ordeal.
In the indictment against Moodley, prosecutor Zaais van Zyl, told the court that while "the crime of kidnapping spans a wide field", there were essentially four different types:
- Express kidnappings (where the individual is kidnapped, taken to an ATM and forced to withdraw money);
- Domestic kidnappings, for example Laurie Fraser who kidnapped his son Timothy Funnell from the child's adoptive parents in Malawi in 1998;
- Political kidnappings like that of Callie and Monique Strydom, taken hostage by Abu Sayyaf rebels in Malaysia in 2000; and
- Stranger kidnappings (targeting the child or relative of a wealthy individual and abducting them for ransom).
In the Pitsiladis case, Rena was chosen as the target because her father, John Pitsiladis, was known to be one of Mmtata's wealthiest businessmen and the owner of a chain of bakeries.
In the Matthews case, Leigh was apparently selected because Moodley knew her father, Rob Matthews, was relatively wealthy.
Both were taken in broad daylight by kidnappers armed with firearms - Rena from outside her Mmtata home and Leigh from outside Bond University in Sandton, where she was a student. Both were held for substantial sums of money.
In his ransom demand call to Rob Matthews, Moodley demanded R300 000 but Leigh's father called the police and was persuaded to give him only R50 000.
He paid the money to Moodley near the Grassmere Toll Plaza, south of Johannesburg, but it is probable that, by then, Moodley had already murdered Leigh, pumping four hollow-point bullets into her brain, heart and lungs.
In his ransom demand to John Pitsiladis, hotel manager Zipho Orient Mcasa demanded R2-million.
Pitsiladis agreed not to call in the police, scraped together the ransom in cash and Krugerrands and, after making the drop, Rena was found unhurt in a dilapidated hut. Nine hours had passed since she was snatched.
In the Pitsiladis case, Mcasa had an accomplice, Jongo Ngomti. In the Matthews case, suspicions remain strong that Moodley had at least one accomplice, probably someone who helped refrigerate Leigh's body for 11 days after she was murdered, probably on July 9 last year - on the night of the day she was kidnapped.
In the Pitsiladis case, Ngomti was convicted partly on the basis of a flurry of phone calls he had made to Mcasa - 55 calls on the day of the kidnapping.
In the Matthews case, Moodley made a call to girlfriend Yashika Singh on his cellphone from Walkerville, the same place from where he had made the ransom call on Leigh's cellphone - and where her body was discovered on July 21.
In the Pitsiladis case, Mcasa and Ngomti bound Rena hand and foot.
In the Matthews case, a piece of tape found near Leigh's body suggests she too was bound.
Rena reportedly managed to melt her abductors' hearts - and win time for herself - by calculatingly flirting with them. Moodley has remained silent about how Leigh may have tried to bargain for her life. There were no signs she was sexually interfered with.
In the Pitsiladis case, Mcasa and Ngomti were jailed for 10 years for the kidnapping and 15 years for extortion, the sentences to run concurrently.
In the Matthews case, Moodley was jailed for life for murder, for 15 years for kidnapping and 10 years for extortion, the sentences to run concurrently.
In a high-profile kidnap-for-ransom in May last year, one not referred to by Van Zyl, Jameel Pandor, 23-year-old son of wealthy Durban exporter Jakes Pandor, was kidnapped at night outside his car dealership, blindfolded, handcuffed and drugged by a group of men who demanded ransom.
Pandor refused to pay up - instead he called in the police and hired five security firms to try and trace his son. Jameel was released unharmed within 24 hours of the kidnapping and four suspects were arrested and charged.
Van Zyl told the court that "examples of reported kidnapping cases are relatively scarce in our law reports".
He noted that the "first case I could find where an accused who kidnapped for a ransom was convicted of both kidnapping and extortion" was a bizarre 1969 case where the kidnapper, surnamed Long, was a transsexual woman.
She kidnapped a 10-year-old girl, held her for 14 hours and demanded a ransom of £7 000 (about R82 600 today), intending to spend the money on a sex-change operation. Long was jailed for five years with hard labour.
Other cases Van Zyl recalled included:
- A 1967 case in which "four persons conspired together and kidnapped the wife and 22-month-old child of a wealthy man from whom they demanded a ransom of R140 000, which was, in fact, paid over.
The victims were held captive for 12 to 14 hours. Neither the woman nor the child was ill-treated and no firearm was involved. The police afterwards found the kidnappers and the ringleader committed suicide. This case goes to show that kidnapping tends to put lives at risk."
- The 1993 case in which notorious Bouncer Gang chieftain Gary Beuthin "viciously assaulted" and then kidnapped his former girlfriend, Jill Reeves, and held her captive for 12 days. Beuthin, who had ingested "cocaine and vast quantities of alcohol", tried to extort Reeves' father, demanding R65 000 "if he wanted to see his daughter again".
- A 1996 case in which a woman surnamed Cain, and a younger accomplice, "kidnapped a 70-year-old man and demanded a ransom of R500 000 from his son. The victim attempted to run away and was then tied up and blindfolded.
His son was told that the victim would be dismembered, should he fail to make the payment. No payment was ever made and the kidnappers simply left their victim behind at the end of the day".
- The 2005 case in which German lovers Marcus Muhlthaler and Michael Brundl kidnapped a 15-year-old Dutch boy at Sunset Beach, Cape Town, and then kept him in a warehouse for six days.
"His hands were handcuffed, he had to sit on a mattress and he was made to wear 'dark goggles'. They demanded an amount of R5-million in ransom from his parents to secure his release".
The police freed the boy without the ransom being paid. The couple were jailed for an effective 10 years each for kidnapping and attempted extortion. Muhlthaler received an extra three years for possession of an illegal firearm and ammunition.
In none of the cases cited by Van Zyl was the victim murdered.
Moodley, on the other hand, clearly foresaw he would possibly murder Leigh, arming himself with a handgun loaded with hollow-point bullets and taking a blanket in which to wrap her body.
"Death was hovering in attendance at the outset," Van Zyl said.
Leigh Matthews spent at least seven or eight hours alive in Moodley's company, but even though he picked up the ransom, he simply forced her to strip naked and then gunned her down in cold blood.