Double murderer Zaheera Boomgaard has been sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday by the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.
Boomgaard, 62, committed the murders months apart in 2020. Both victims were in their 70s.
They are Jamnadas Harkant Nathvani, a British national whose body was badly burnt, as well as that of her friend, Lynette Mustapha, whose body was also badly burnt.
She met Nathvani on an online site and he came to South Africa to visit her. Mustapha and Boomgaard meanwhile met at church.
Both bodies were found near a road in Walkerville not far from each other and within a few months of each other. Indications are that both were killed elsewhere and that Boomgaard dumped them next to the road before setting them alight.
She was meanwhile acquitted of a third murder – that of John Naisby, who went missing in 2012 after visiting Boomgaard and was never seen again. His body was never recovered, and his family eventually had him declared to be presumably dead by a court.
Boomgaard was, apart from the two murder convictions, also convicted on an array of other charges relating to the fact that she used Nathvani’s bank cards to draw money after his death and she also forged the will of Mustapha to appoint herself the beneficiary of her estate.
The family of both victims meanwhile handed letters to the court where they asked for the harshest punishment to be meted out. They also delivered a plea that she never be released from jail on parole.
During the trial, Boomgaard claimed that she was hearing voices and three psychiatrists from Sterkfontein psychiatric hospital rejected the claims and said she is psychologically sound to face her punishment.
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