Cape Town - The family of former police captain and mother Charlene October, 49, have welcomed the sentence of life imprisonment handed to her ex-husband, Elim businessman Ashley October, in the Western Cape High Court..
Judge Rosheni Allie sentenced October to life imprisonment on Friday after State advocate Leon Snyman proved that October was guilty of conspiring with two former employees in 2011 and 2012 to kill October, eventually doing it himself in July last year.
Charlene’s son, Ethan Telemachus, discovered her body at her Protea Street home the next day, where the scene had been made to look like a suicide.
As he wept outside court on Friday, Telemachus said: “I am glad for the outcome in court, but the fact that he is still walking around while my mother is gone, it breaks my heart.”
Charlene’s sister, Alicia Jooste, said: “I thought it was going to be euphoria listening to the word ‘life’, but there was nothing. It didn’t mean anything. We are grateful, but it doesn’t make things better, only the fact that somebody is convicted and he’s going to jail, that makes it better.”
October received a life sentence following his conviction two weeks ago; he had opted not to testify, leaving the court to come to its conclusion based on circumstantial evidence presented by the State.
In handing down sentence, Judge Allie said: “Accused two (October) proceeded to commit the offence without caring for the emotional, financial and physical consequence that the death of the deceased would have on her children, grandchild, including his own two young children as well as on her sisters, brother, and other family.
“It could be said that compared to accused one, accused two led a more comfortable life. Accused two also had no qualms about preying on vulnerable people who had a drug habit, such as Mr Kerr, Mr Zeitsman and finally accused one,” Judge Allie said.
Tashwell van der Rhede (accused one) received a 15-year sentence for his role in the murder after he admitted October asked him to kill Charlene.
He testified that he committed the robbery under October’s instruction and while he didn’t see the murder he heard Charlene shouting at October the night she was killed.
“Since accused two didn’t take the court into his confidence by testifying in the trial, nor in sentence proceedings, this court simply does not know what motivated him to murder his former wife in such a manner,” the judge said.
She added: “Not only did both accused rob the deceased’s family of having her in their lives, they also robbed society of a productive member, a former police captain and a working woman rendering an important service to a school in a small rural community.”
Following proceedings the sisters said they were aware of October’s abusive nature towards Charlene.
“On the day she was killed, we got the news at nine in the morning and we were there by 12pm. Ashley was standing next to the investigating officer (IO) and I went to the IO.
“Without saying anything to Ashley, I told the IO that ‘this man tried to kill my sister in 2012, the docket should be at the police station, please follow it up’. But yes, we knew about it and always pleaded with her to get away from Ashley,” the sisters said.
They thanked the Elim community and the prosecutor for helping them get justice for their sister.
“The highest praise goes to Leon Snyman, well to God first, but he put his heart and his soul into it... He saw the pain that we were going through and I think we commend him for that because he went above and beyond what we expected.”
Immediately after the judge sentenced October, his lawyer, Dorian Van Zyl, said they would be taking the conviction and sentence on appeal.