Son of slain couple denies plotting farm massacre

‘I NEVER, nowhere discussed anything about a contract killing with Sylvester or anyone.’

With this denial – probably as emphatic as a denial could be – alleged farm massacre mastermind Justus Christiaan (‘Shorty’) Erasmus yesterday disputed any suggestion that he had a hand in the murder of his parents and six other people in a massacre at farm Kareeboomvloer between Rehoboth and Kalkrand on the weekend of March 4 to 5 2005.More than four years after he was arrested as an alleged key suspect in the murder of his parents and six other people at his parents’ farm, Shorty Erasmus’s chance to testify in his own defence finally arrived in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday.Testifying in Afrikaans, Erasmus (31) denied each of the accusations made against him by self-admitted killer Sylvester Beukes (24), who has told Judge President Petrus Damaseb that the Kareeboomvloer murders originated in a request from Erasmus in which he asked Beukes to kill his parents.According to Beukes, Erasmus first broached that subject in 2003, during a visit that he and Erasmus made to the farm where the massacre was to take place later.He claimed that Erasmus offered to pay him N$50 000 if he killed both Erasmus’s parents, Justus and Elzabé Erasmus, who were both 50 years old when they were murdered, and his sister, Yolande Erasmus. The motive for the killings was a wish by Erasmus to get hold of his inheritance from his parents, Beukes claimed. ‘We didn’t have such a discussion. Something of that sort never happened,’ Erasmus told the Judge President yesterday.Beukes also claimed that on January 31 2005, he met Erasmus in Windhoek and Erasmus handed him a .38 Special revolver, ammunition for the gun and a firearm licence belonging to Erasmus’s father. He later used that gun to carry out some of the killings at Kareeboomvloer, Beukes told the court in September and December last year.According to him, the meeting with Erasmus took place between 13h00 and 14h00, and was interrupted by a call that Erasmus received on his cellphone when they were near the Wernhil Park shopping centre in the city.No call that went through the cellphone tower in the Wernhil Park area in that time slot could be found on Erasmus’s cellphone records for January 31 2005, though.The phone records also indicate that by 11h53 that morning, Erasmus was involved in a call while his phone was in the vicinity of Hosea Kutako International Airport.Erasmus told the Judge President that he was working at the airport, where he was employed at a car rental agency, on that day. He said his shift started at 12h00 and he only returned to the city after the shift had ended early that evening.He did not meet Beukes that day, did not hand him a firearm, ammunition and gun licence, and did not receive any phone call in Beukes’s presence that day either, Erasmus stated under questioning from his defence lawyer, Petrie Theron.Erasmus is set to be taken through the events of March 5 2005 – when he was the first person to arrive at Kareeboomvloer after the massacre – when the trial continues today.He told the Judge President yesterday that he had a close relationship with both his parents.Telling the court about his relationship with his father, he said: ‘We were very close. We did everything together. He taught me everything I know today. He was my teacher, my mentor.’About his mother, he said: ‘My mother and I were also very, very close. She had a passion for making clothes, and I was her mannequin.’Erasmus is on trial with Beukes, the latter’s older brother, Gavin Beukes (27), and Rehoboth area resident Stoney Neidel (32), at whose house on a farm west of Rehoboth the Beukes brothers hid a large load of goods and livestock stolen from Kareeboomvloer after the killings.The four men went on trial on 15 charges, including eight counts of murder and a charge of robbery with aggravating circumstances, before Judge President Damaseb on March 1 2007. Erasmus and Neidel are free on bail. The Beukes brothers have been kept in custody since their arrest on March 6 2005.