Cape Town - Former police officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Marius van der Westhuizen, who murdered his three young children 17 years ago, will have to undergo further profiling and assessments and intervention before he can be considered for parole and a hearing.
Van der Westhuizen’s parole hearing took place on December 13 2023 at Malmesbury Prison.
He was placed in front of a panel by the Community Supervision and Parole Board (CSPB).
Candice van Reenen of the Department of Correctional Services explained that Van der Westhuizen has to continue more evaluations before he can be considered for parole.
“The Department of Correctional Services can confirm that inmate Marius van der Westhuizen had a sitting with the Community Supervision and Parole Board (CSPB) on Wednesday, 13 December 2023,” she said.
“The CSPB approved a further profile for the inmate to June 2024 for further assessment and intervention.”
Last month, Lieutenant-Colonel Charlotte van der Westhuizen broke her silence publicly, calling on women to stand with her in appealing against his parole bid.
Charlotte said she would only attend the Victim Offender Dialogue (VOD) if she did not have to testify in the same room as her estranged husband.
Her lawyer, Gerhard van Niekerk of De Klerk, Van Gend Attorneys Inc previously informed Weekend Argus that they would be acting on her behalf.
She had indicated that facing him would impact her emotionally and psychologically and she was therefore advised not to speak in front of him.
Charlotte is a high-ranking police officer who is stationed at Organisational Development Strategic Management at the Provincial Office of the South African Police.
During a public plea she told of how Van der Westhuizen had murdered their little children in cold blood.
“Marius shot and murdered my three children in front of me, one after the other and then he locked me inside the house where my children were lying dead, still bleeding profusely.
The couple had a history of domestic violence and at one stage Charlotte had obtained an interdict against van der Westhuizen but withdrew it.
Van der Westhuizen had been the Vispol Commander at Claremont Police Station at the time of the murders.
Van der Westhuizen was sentenced to 24 years behind bars for the murders of 21-month-old Antoinette, five-year-old Marius and 16-year-old Bianca, which took place in 2006.
His apparent motive was to punish Charlotte for having lied to him and gave her an ultimatum to choose between her job or him and their family and when she answered that she could not make such a choice, the murders began.