The Kareeboomvloer massacre was a 2005 mass murder on the Kareeboomvloer farm (Afrikaans: Karee tree valley, after the Karee tree) in the Hardap Region of Namibia, situated between Rehoboth and Kalkrand. It was the "biggest bloodbath in Namibian [criminal] history."

Massacre and subsequents arrests

On 5 March 2005 brothers Sylvester and Gavin Beukes killed eight people at the Kareeboomvloer farm: the owners, an employee and his pregnant wife, two adult members of the employee's family, and two small children. All people present on the farm on the day of the crime were killed.

The attackers first shot and killed the owners Justus and Elzabé Erasmus and then executed all witnesses by first firing at them and then setting five of them alight with diesel fuel. Four of the victims were still alive when they were set on fire. The Beukes brothers then stole the farm pickup car, loaded it with rifles and goats from the farm, and hid the loot at Stoney Neidel's house in Rehoboth and on his farm Areb, situated west of Rehoboth.

Gavin Beukes, Sylvester Beukes and Stoney Neidel were arrested a few days after the massacre. Sylvester Beukes admitted guilt on all counts of murder but 10 days after the murder claimed that the owners' son, Justus Christiaan "Shorty" Erasmus gave the order to kill his parents, handed a weapon and ammunition to Sylvester, and promised N$50,000 payment, as well as legal representation. Erasmus denied these accusations but was also arrested. He and Neidel were later released on bail, while the Beukes brothers remained in custody throughout the trial.

Trial

The proceedings were conducted in the High Court in Windhoek and lasted for over four years. The three defendants were each represented by Windhoek defense lawyers, Sylvester Beukes by Titus Ipumbu of Titus Ipumbu Legal Practitioners, Gavin Beukes by Titus Mbaeva of Mbaeva & Associates, and Boris Isaacks of Isaacks & Benz Inc represented Neidel.

According to testimonies, Sylvester Beukes killed all eight people by himself whereas his brother Gavin was a bystander who was, in his own words, "at the wrong place at the wrong time". Sylvester Beukes claimed that he tied his brother Gavin to a pole so the he could only have heard, but not observed, the shooting. Forensic evidence showed, however, that Gavin Beukes was no further than 5 metres (16 ft) away when the victims were shot.

Prior to sentencing, Acting Prison Commissioner Raphael Hamunyela was called as witness to explain how life sentences are administered in Namibia. All life sentences in Namibia can be set aside after as little as ten years, and the nature and severity of the committed crimes are not factors weighed by the prison authorities in considerations of early release. Multiple life terms count as one. For the sentences in the Kareeboomvloer mass murder case the Deputy Prosecutor therefore specifically asked not to impose a sentence of life imprisonment but to set definite periods.

Judge President Petrus Damaseb followed the prosecution's request and handed out some of the longest prison terms in Namibian history. The Beukes brothers were sentenced to a combined total of 670 years in jail. Several concurrent sentences led to an effective prison term of 105 years for Sylvester Beukes, and 84 years for Gavin Beukes. Damaseb remarked about the case:

"[Y]ou tortured your victims and committed crimes the likes of which I hope I will not [again] have the misfortune to preside over during the remainder of my judicial career. [...] You truly are an embodiment of evil."

The likely motive for the killings was revenge with respect to the farm owners, and doing away with witnesses. Justus Erasmus had previously fired Sylvester Beukes, and laid theft charges against him. Beukes emerged from the Kalkrand police station in December 2004, three months prior to the massacre, where he was in custody for the charges brought by Erasmus. The claim that Beukes was contracted by the farmer's son was dismissed by the judge as not proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Sylvester Beukes' testimony contained a number of contradictions and unlikely claims, most prominently that Shorty Erasmus had offered to pay for his legal representation in the murder case—paying for the defense of his parents' murderer would inevitably have implicated him. Shorty Erasmus was thus acquitted of having contracted the murders. Stoney Neidel was found guilty of theft and illegal possession of firearms and sentenced to an effective six years of imprisonment.

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Record jail terms in massacre trial

By Werner Menges - Namibian.com.na

November 22, 2011

“YOU truly are an embodiment of evil.” This was one of the remarks from Judge President Petrus Damaseb which brothers Sylvester and Gavin Beukes had to stomach during their sentencing in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday.

The brothers, convicted of murdering eight people in the Kareeboomvloer farm massacre on March 5 2005, were sentenced to prison terms totalling 670 years.

Sylvester Beukes (26), who during their trial admitted that he murdered the eight victims, was sentenced to prison terms totalling 395 years. With some of the sentences ordered to be served concurrently, he was sentenced to an effective 105 years in jail.

The prison terms meted out to Gavin Beukes (30) totalled 275 years. With some of these sentences likewise ordered to be served concurrently, he was sentenced to an effective 84 years’ imprisonment.

Gavin Beukes was present at the farm when the murders were committed. He was convicted based on a finding that he and his brother had acted with a common purpose.

Rehoboth resident Stoney Neidel (34), who was found guilty of theft and illegal possession of firearms based on the fact that goods which the brothers had stolen from the farm were later stored at his homes at Rehoboth and on a farm west of Rehoboth, was sentenced to an effective six years’ imprisonment.

The Kareeboomvloer farm massacre was a murder case without equal in Namibia’s criminal history, and so are the sentences imposed on the Beukeses.

The effective prison term of 105 years which Sylvester Beukes was sentenced to is the longest prison sentence imposed by a Namibian court to date.

Addressing the two brothers directly during the sentencing, Judge President Damaseb said: “On the day you perpetrated these crimes you made two conscious decisions: The number of people you were going to kill, and how you were going to kill them.”

Both choices made by the brothers revealed their evil minds, the judge president said.

“You chose to kill as many people as possible, in fact everyone who was at the farm. No one was to be spared - not children, not even a pregnant woman. As for the second, you chose to carry out your crimes in the most brutal fashion imaginable.”

It is clear that the brothers wanted their victims to suffer emotionally and physically, Judge President Damaseb said: “You wanted them to know that they were going to die, and to die experiencing unthinkable pain.”

He continued: “In short, you tortured your victims and committed crimes the likes of which I hope I will not have the misfortune to preside over during the remainder of my judicial career. That you are a menace to society is a moot point.”

The people murdered at Kareeboomvloer, which is situated between Rehoboth and Kalkrand, were farm owners Justus and Elzabé Erasmus (both 50), who were previous employers of Sylvester Beukes, Sunnybooi Swartbooi (35), who was an employee of the Erasmus couple, Swartbooi’s pregnant partner, Hilma Engelbrecht (32), their children, Christina Engelbrecht (6) and Regina Gertze (4), Swartbooi’s brother, Settie Swartbooi (50), and Deon Gertze (18), who was a relative of Hilma Engelbrecht.

The victims were shot, and five of them – with the exception of the Erasmus couple and Sunnybooi Swartbooi – were afterwards set on fire in a storeroom at the farm. Some of them were still breathing when they were set alight, it was later established when autopsies were done on their remains.

The manner in which the murders were committed “was particularly cruel and brutal”, Judge President Damaseb said.

He sentenced Sylvester Beukes to a 45-year prison term on each of the eight murder counts. Gavin Beukes was sentenced to a 30-year prison term on each charge of murder. They were further sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment for housebreaking with intent to rob and robbery with aggravating circumstances, a ten-year jail term for arson, six years in prison for defeating or obstructing the course of justice, and four years’ imprisonment for possession of firearms and ammunition without a licence.

Deputy Prosecutor General Antonia Verhoef represented the State during the trial, which started on March 1 2007.

Defence lawyer Titus Ipumbu represented Sylvester Beukes, Titus Mbaeva appeared for Gavin Beukes, and Boris Isaacks represented Neidel.

Prison officer explains the meaning of 'life'

By Werner Menges - Namibian.com.na

September 11, 2011

AN OFFENDER sentenced to life imprisonment could be released from prison after serving only ten years behind bars, according to testimony heard in the final stage of the Kareeboomvloer farm massacre trial in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday.

Namibia’s prison authorities regard a life term of imprisonment as a sentence of a minimum of 20 years in jail, Assistant Prisons Commissioner Raphael Hamunyela told Judge President Petrus Damaseb.

According to the Prisons Act a prisoner has to serve half of his sentence before he can be considered for release on parole, with the result that someone sentenced to life imprisonment would be eligible to be released after having spent ten years in jail, Hamunyela told the court.
He further explained that multiple terms of life imprisonment are considered as one life term, and that other sentences of imprisonment which a life-term prisoner has received are also served concurrently with the life term.

When the possibility of releasing a prisoner on parole is decided by the prison authorities and the National Release Board, the prisoner’s conduct in jail, self-discipline, responsibility and industry, rather than the crimes he was convicted of, are considered, he also told the Judge President.

Hamunyela gave the testimony after Deputy Prosecutor General Antonia Verhoef had called him to the witness stand to explain to the court how the prison authorities administer life prison terms.

Judge President Damaseb also heard testimony from two of the men convicted on charges connected to the Kareeboomvloer farm massacre, and from relatives of six of the eight people who were murdered at the farm during the weekend of March 4 to 5 2005.

Brothers Sylvester and Gavin Beukes were found guilty on eight counts of murder and further charges of housebreaking with intent to rob, robbery with aggravating circumstances, defeating or obstructing the course of justice, arson, and possession of firearms and ammunition without a licence on July 27.

A co-accused, Stoney Neidel, was found guilty on counts of theft and possession of firearms without a licence. The Beukes brothers stored various goods which they had stolen at Kareeboomvloer at Neidel’s homes at Rehoboth and on a farm west of Rehoboth.

Sylvester Beukes, who admitted during the trial that he killed the eight people at the farm and then set five of his victims – including two small children and a pregnant woman – on fire, did not testify in mitigation of sentence yesterday.

Gavin Beukes did, and turned teary when he told the court about his two sons, who were staying with him at the time of his arrest a day after the killings, and about the death of his and his brother’s parents in 2001.

He also told the court that he did not kill any of the victims at the farm, adding that he had told his brother several times to stop what he was doing while he was on his murderous rampage.

When Verhoef asked Beukes what he heard from the room where five of the victims of the massacre were shot and set on fire – with medical evidence indicating that four of them were still alive when they were burned – he said he only heard some of them pleading for their lives.

The two children who were murdered, Regina Gertze (4) and Christina Engelbrecht (6), appeared shocked as they followed their pregnant mother, Hilma Engelbrecht (32), into the room where they were then shot and burned, Beukes recalled.

Beukes also told the Judge President: “If you just say ‘sorry’ it sounds (like) little. But I’m deeply sorry. For the people who lost their lives. They lost their lives while I was observing. Not because I killed them.”

He added: “I deeply regret that I was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Beukes was convicted on the basis of a finding by the Judge President that he had acted in concert with his brother when the crimes at the farm were committed.

Neidel, too, indicated to the court yesterday that he did not agree with the verdict as far as it relates to him.

He said he was not pleased with the verdict, and did not think he had been treated fairly, as he still considers himself as being innocent.

The people killed at the farm, situated between Rehoboth and Kalkrand, were Engelbrecht, her two children, her partner, Sunnybooi Swartbooi (35), his brother, Settie Swartbooi (50), Deon Gertze (18), who had been at the farm for only about a week before the murders took place, and farm owners Justus and Elzabé Erasmus (both aged 50).

The trial is set to continue today with the hearing of arguments from the prosecution and defence on the sentences to be imposed on the three convicted men.

Brothers guilty of farm massacre

By Werner Menges - Namibian.com.na

July 28, 2011

AFTER close to six and a half years of being accused of having masterminded the murder of his parents and six other people at their farm south of Rehoboth, ‘Shorty’ Erasmus is a free man again.

Windhoek resident Justus Christiaan (‘Shorty’) Erasmus was found not guilty on all charges – including eight counts of murder – in the High Court in Windhoek yesterday.

The man whose claims led to Erasmus’s arrest in mid-March 2005, Rehoboth resident Sylvester Beukes (26), and his brother, Gavin Beukes (30), were both convicted on eight counts of murder and charges of robbery with aggravating circumstances, housebreaking with intent to rob and robbery with aggravating circumstances, defeating or obstructing the course of justice, arson, and possession of firearms and ammunition without a licence.

Judge President Petrus Damaseb also found Rehoboth area resident Stoney Neidel guilty, on counts of theft and possession of firearms without a licence.

Erasmus was tearful after the delivery of the verdict. He embraced his sister, Yolande Erasmus, after the court had adjourned, and then walked away as a free man with her.

He would first need to catch his breath and come to terms with his acquittal, which came as “an enormous relief”, Erasmus told The Namibian late yesterday afternoon. He said the past six years and four months have been a trying time, but he has been able to cope with support from his friends, family and his faith. He feels like an 18-year-old again, with his life starting afresh once more, Erasmus said.

The four men were on trial over the massacre of eight people at farm Kareeboomvloer between Rehoboth and Kalkrand during the weekend of March 4 to 5 2005.

Two of the people who were killed were the owners of the farm, Justus and Elzabé Erasmus (both 50), who were the parents of ‘Shorty’ Erasmus. The other six victims of the massacre were an employee of the Erasmus couple, Sunnybooi Swartbooi (35), Swartbooi’s pregnant wife, Hilma Engelbrecht (32), their children, Christina Engelbrecht (6) and Regina Gertze (4), Swartbooi’s brother, Settie Swartbooi (50), and Deon Gertze (18), who was a nephew of Hilma Engelbrecht.

The victims were shot dead, and five of them – with the exception of the Erasmus couple and Sunnybooi Swartbooi – were afterwards set on fire in a storeroom at the farm.

Sylvester Beukes, who is a former employee of the Erasmus couple, admitted during the trial that he committed the murders at the farm. He went much further – claiming that ‘Shorty’ Erasmus had asked him to murder Erasmus’s parents.

Erasmus vehemently denied these allegations during the trial.

Beukes also claimed that while his brother was present at the farm when the murders were committed, he was holding his brother captive and tied up at times and Gavin Beukes was not involved in the killings.

Neidel was drawn into the affair when a hoard of goods, including firearms, which the Beukes brothers had stolen from the farm was later stored at Neidel’s house at Rehoboth and on a communal farm west of the town.

In his verdict the Judge President noted that forensic evidence about medium and high-velocity blood spatter that was found on Gavin Beukes’s shoes indicated that he must have been close to – five metres or less away from – the source of that blood spatter.

The court also heard that this sort of blood spatter would be caused when someone is shot. This scientific evidence is not reconcilable with Gavin Beukes’s claims, as relayed to the court in his plea explanation at the start of the trial, that he had not been near the murders when these were committed, the Judge President found.

Judge President Damaseb also noted that Gavin Beukes had clear opportunities to disassociate himself from his brother, the self-confessed killer of eight people, after they had left the farm.

He however never disassociated himself from his brother or took any steps to report the crimes at the farm before the two brothers were arrested on March 6 2007, the Judge President said.
He found that it had been proven that Gavin Beukes had acted in concert with Sylvester Beukes when the latter committed the crimes at the farm.

On Sylvester Beukes’s claims that Erasmus had recruited him to commit a contract killing in which Erasmus’s parents were the principal targets the Judge President said he agreed with Erasmus’s defence lawyer, Petrie Theron, that Beukes was a single witness.

Judge President Damaseb added that he was taking into account that Beukes is “a self-confessed mass murderer” who, faced with the inevitability of his fate at the altar of justice, had tried to minimise the role that his brother played in the crimes.

After the brothers were arrested there was an inexplicable delay of eight days before Beukes first made the allegations about a contract killing against Erasmus, the Judge President also noted.

Before he made that statement in which he implicated Erasmus, Beukes had admitted during a Magistrate’s Court appearance that he committed the murders, and that his motive was that he wanted to take revenge against Erasmus’s father for having allegedly treated him badly when he was employed by Erasmus Sr, the Judge President also noted.

He concluded that he was not satisfied that it had been proven that Erasmus contracted Sylvester Beukes to murder his parents.

With regard to Neidel, who like Gavin Beukes did not testify in his own defence, Judge President Damaseb found that he had planned the theft committed at Kareeboomvloer with the Beukes brothers.

The three convicted men are returning to court today to hear when the sentencing phase of their trial will take place.

Deputy Prosecutor General Antonia Verhoef has been conducting the prosecution.  Sylvester Beukes is being represented by Titus Ipumbu, Gavin Beukes by Titus Mbaeva, and Neidel by Boris Isaacks.