00:00:03
[MUSIC PLAYING] MAN (ON PHONE): It just
sounds like something bad is happening to her.
00:00:08
WOMAN (ON PHONE): I
heard her scream, no. Stop it. MAN: And I heard some gunshots.
00:00:12
POLICE OFFICER: Drop it. Whatever it is, drop it. That is not true
that I killed my wife.
00:00:18
WOMAN: We know what
happened because the video tells us what happened. MAN (ON PHONE): The
camera doesn't lie.
00:00:25
NARRATOR: This time, on
"Killers Caught on Camera--" In the UK, a five-year-old
boy goes missing
00:00:35
in the middle of the night. As police desperately
search for answers. Was he dead or alive?
00:00:50
Was he in danger, or had
he been taken by someone? NARRATOR: And in South Africa, a
woman is found dead in a field.
00:00:58
There's going to
be a point of time where she realizes that they
don't intend to let her live.
00:01:04
NARRATOR: As law
enforcement piece together the 11-hour carjacking
that resulted in her death.
00:01:11
One of the assailants
tells him quiet or she dies. [MUSIC PLAYING] NARRATOR: Bridgend Wales.
00:01:35
Logan Mwangi was a
five-year-old boy who lived with his mother,
Angharad Williamson
00:01:40
and stepfather, John Cole. He was a very happy,
polite, chatty, young boy. A little bit cheeky but was
very sort of affectionate
00:01:49
and just had a real
thirst for learning. Everyone who came
into contact with him
00:01:54
just thought he was a
really lovely little boy. NARRATOR: 5:45 AM. 31st of July, 2021.
00:02:04
A frantic 999 call was made. Phillip Dewey is
court correspondent for "Wales Online."
00:02:34
She woke up that morning,
had gone into Logan's room, and he had disappeared. She said she checked the
back door, and it was open,
00:02:41
but Logan hadn't taken
his shoes or a coat. She said she was
absolutely petrified
00:02:46
that he had left the house,
was somewhere cold and afraid. NARRATOR: After
Angharad called 999,
00:02:54
John and his 13-year-old
stepson, Craig, searched the
neighborhood, as captured on a home surveillance system.
00:03:06
Within sort of 10
minutes, police officers were on the ground,
looking everywhere,
00:03:10
everywhere that Logan might have
gone to, friends and neighbors. And John and Craig were out
looking for Logan, as well.
00:03:35
NARRATOR: The police needed
to get as much information as possible from the family.
00:03:40
Officers asked them to
go back to the house. A police body cam filmed
Angharad distraught
00:03:53
on the doorstep. Angharad was very
upset, as any mother would be in that situation.
00:03:59
It was just about finding out
what had happened to Logan. Kirsty Bennett is a
criminal psychologist.
00:04:19
When we initially have
a child disappearing, our first concern is
obviously where is that child
00:04:25
and what's happened to them? And to do that, we have to
cooperate with the family, who
00:04:29
are going to be able
to give us ideas about where Logan might be. They had the mother, who
was beside herself with worry,
00:04:45
and they were having
to deal with the aspect of trying to reassure
her and calm her down.
00:04:56
Not knowing what happened
to this little boy, there was a whole sort
of range of possibilities
00:05:00
about what they were facing. Like, was he dead or alive? Was he in danger, or had
he been taken by someone?
00:05:07
These were all sort of
questions that were still yet to be answered,
and the investigation
00:05:12
to find out what happened to him
was critical in those stages. NARRATOR: Less than an hour
after Logan went missing,
00:05:26
police located him just
a few hundred meters from the family home. Two police officers were
searching in nearby Pandy Park,
00:05:38
along the River Ogmore, when
out of the corner of one of the officer's eye, they
saw what looked like a body
00:05:45
floating in the River Ogmore. At that point, one
of the officers dived in, got into the river,
and retrieved the body.
00:05:56
It was quite apparent
from the descriptions that this was Logan. NARRATOR: Logan was
pronounced dead at the scene.
00:06:06
Angharad was given
the devastating news. The police's
initial impressions about what had
happened to Logan,
00:06:22
obviously, it looked like he
had wandered into the river and had drowned. There was a lot of
unanswered questions,
00:06:27
obviously, about how we had
come to be in the river, how he had left the house. And police were keeping an
open mind at this stage.
00:06:34
His body was taken to
hospital and was then sent for a postmortum shortly later.
00:06:41
NARRATOR: While the family were
dealing with Logan's death, investigators got to work
piecing together what happened.
00:06:49
They started with a key
piece of body-worn footage recorded at the house when
the police first arrived.
00:07:05
Coral Dando is a professor
of forensic psychology. She used to be a police officer
and understands detective work.
00:07:12
They are very good
at what we refer to as situational awareness. So they'll walk into a
situation or a context
00:07:19
and be very cognizant, very
aware of what's going on. They don't necessarily
acknowledge it,
00:07:24
but it will all
have been taken in. What we actually see on
the body-worn camera is
00:07:30
the washing machine going off. And that's a bit concerning,
because if they're asleep
00:07:37
and they've woken up
to find Logan missing, your first step wouldn't be
to put the washing machine on.
00:07:45
Unusual behavior when
your child is missing, and you're absolutely
traumatized. You're grief stricken.
00:07:52
You're hysterical. NARRATOR: The contents
of the washing machine raised more questions.
00:08:00
When police looked
inside the washing machine that there was bedding
that belonged to Logan
00:08:05
that was being washed. NARRATOR: Their story
wasn't adding up, but the police still
needed more evidence.
00:08:13
They spoke to a
number of neighbors to see if they had CCTV
cameras on their property
00:08:17
that could be used to see
how Logan had left the house, whether he had left on
his own or whether there
00:08:23
had been another
explanation as to how he came to be in the river. NARRATOR: Emi
Polito is an expert
00:08:30
witness and video analyst. Luckily, the police
finds CCTV footage of a neighboring
property pointing
00:08:38
directly at Logan's bedroom. NARRATOR: Dr. Vasileios
Karagiannopoulos is a leading
00:08:44
figure in digital forensics. There is light turning
on in Logan's room during the night on
multiple occasions,
00:08:53
and it stays on
for many minutes. NARRATOR: Angharad told
police she went to bed
00:08:59
and slept all night. This footage suggests
that there are people awake and not asleep in bed.
00:09:06
NARRATOR: Someone had been busy. Looking at the CCTV, they
find out that something else
00:09:11
is going on. NARRATOR: Two figures
were seen leaving from the back of the house
in the middle of the night.
00:09:18
They appeared to be carrying
something over their shoulder and walking up the garden
path and then walking
00:09:24
in the direction of the river. At the same time,
we can actually see someone opening the
curtains in Logan's bedroom.
00:09:34
Given that Logan's mom account
was that she's been asleep all night and there was no
activity in the property
00:09:40
during the night,
clearly the police have now information to suspect
that something more sinister
00:09:46
is going on. Detectives wanted
to re-examine the 999 call made by Angharad. The CCTV in the
daylight, now shows
00:09:59
Logan's mom coming out of the
property, making the 999 call. There's quite an emotional
response from Logan's mom,
00:10:14
which we would
normally anticipate, but she's not really crying. Obviously, the operator
was trying to reassure her,
00:10:23
but she was having none of it. And it's very hard
to pin her down and get her to engage with the police.
00:10:37
It starts to raise suspicions
as to why she's not giving the information being
asked of her when
00:10:43
she's so concerned about
her child being missing. Obviously, the operator
was professional and trying
00:10:59
to cope with the situation. But there just seemed
to be something very melodramatic about the way
she was acting and possibly,
00:11:06
not quite ringing true. The time of the day is
quite interesting, as well, because Logan is five years old.
00:11:14
You wouldn't expect him
to voluntarily leave the house during those hours. And because of that
time, we'd like
00:11:20
to think the house is secure. It's locked. He wouldn't have access
to leave the property.
00:11:26
And that wouldn't
immediately raise suspicions at 5:40 in the morning that a
five-year-old boy has seemingly
00:11:32
wandered out of the house. NARRATOR: As suspicions
grew, the police had another look at the
footage of John and Craig
00:11:41
out searching for Logan. People will go
incredibly far to try and cover up their
crimes, and search parties
00:11:51
are not irregular. Pretending to look for them,
pretending to be distraught, all of these can be a
package of that sort
00:11:57
of deceptive narrative
you're trying to spin, where you're trying to convince
other people that you had
00:12:01
nothing to do with
this, and you're just an innocent parent who's
looking for their loved one.
00:12:10
NARRATOR: The footage
in the kitchen became increasingly important. So when police arrive at
these sorts of situations,
00:12:19
they have to tread a
really complex path, because they have no idea
whether on this occasion,
00:12:27
Angharad, so Logan's mother,
is actually telling the truth or whether she is
acting out a trauma
00:12:35
response or a grief response
to the terrible news that her child is missing. So they have to
be really careful.
00:12:43
They want to gather
information from her, and in order to do that, they
need to just let her talk.
00:12:49
Because at this point, there is
no concept or no understanding that he is actually dead.
00:12:55
There are elements
about her behavior that you can see on
the body-worn camera footage that are quite
interesting to psychologists,
00:13:03
such as myself. She's screeching. She's howling. She's saying an awful lot. But there are no details.
00:13:20
There's no real information. There's nothing that
the police officers can really use in
terms of trying
00:13:28
to seek out where Logan is. Are there any verifiable
details in her account? And there are very few.
00:13:38
But of course, in
a trauma response, that might well be the case. So it's really difficult.
And she's also dropping down
00:13:45
to her knees in a traumatic,
behavioral sort of way, which I think, she thinks is
how a parent in her situation
00:13:55
should behave. You'd expect a
mother to be upset and even quite hysterical,
but this was sort of something
00:14:07
different. One minute she was wailing,
crying for her baby. Next minute, she was acting
aggressively towards officers.
00:14:22
Next minute, she
seemed to be in denial. People who feel
like they're not able to mask their true
emotions enough or not
00:14:36
show the right emotion enough,
so they don't look sad enough. They don't look
concerned enough.
00:14:40
You get someone leaning
more and more and more and almost becoming more
and more theatrical and more
00:14:44
and more obvious, even though
what they're trying to do is the opposite. NARRATOR:
Investigators concluded
00:14:53
that the nighttime footage
of the two figures leaving the house at 2:43 AM were
John and Craig, who carried
00:15:01
Logan's body to the river. A minute later, in
Logan's bedroom, it was Angharad who turned
the light on and off
00:15:08
and opened the curtains. It was enough to implicate
all three in Logan's death. The 1st of August, 2021.
00:15:27
When the police officer
starts to arrest her, she turns from being
grief-stricken,
00:15:32
hysterical to then
starting to lash out verbally at the police officer. How can you think this is me?
00:15:39
How can you even assume
that I'd have anything to do with my beautiful child's
death, and so on and so forth.
00:15:46
So we get a switch
straight away. She's pointing. She's shouting. And this behavior suggests
that she's now in panic mode.
00:16:18
What she is now is
really, really cross. She's being quite aggressive. She realizes that
it's all failed.
00:16:29
It's all coming down behind her. It's very self-preservation. She's very concerned
about what's
00:16:37
going to happen to her
and her involvement in it, rather than Logan
and the circumstances
00:16:45
surrounding his murder. One of the really
interesting things that emerges from the footage is
this clear performative grief.
00:17:07
She listens to
what's being said, and then it kicks off again. It all starts again.
00:17:12
NARRATOR: Angharad couldn't
have acted without John Cole. This police officer
here is involved
00:17:22
in the arrest procedure. He will be talking, watching,
gathering information. He's happy to provide
a story, which
00:17:39
seems to be well-practiced. NARRATOR: John's
13-year-old stepson, Craig, was also taken into custody.
00:17:57
While in foster care, he
told his foster family that he wanted to kill Logan,
who he referred
00:18:01
to as "the five-year-old." Here, we have body
cam footage of Craig, Angharad's boyfriend's
stepson, being arrested.
00:18:17
He just stands there with
his hands in his pockets. He says and does
nothing at this point.
00:18:34
The fact that a 13-year-old
boy was capable of taking part in such a brutal act was
just something that no
00:18:42
one would ever have expected. When you're 13 years
old, you literally don't have the
full-sized brain that
00:18:50
you will have later on in life. And you are going to make worse
decisions overall because you
00:18:55
don't have as much brain. So holding children, who
especially are that young, as responsible as
adults is always one
00:19:03
of those tricky things to do. And in most parts of
the world, we don't. But then we sometimes make
exceptions, especially
00:19:09
for extreme things like
murder, because we assume even young kids can understand
the consequences of something
00:19:14
that extreme. We can never point to
a single difference between someone who kills
people and someone who doesn't.
00:19:19
But we can look at the risk
factors, and in his case, he had lots of them. He had an unstable
environment growing up.
00:19:25
He had callous,
unemotional traits. He seemed to struggle
to adjust into families
00:19:30
and to be part of
the family unit. He then was moved into
another high-risk situation.
00:19:35
There's just a whole
series of things going wrong here for
this kid to mature in a normal, healthy way.
00:19:47
NARRATOR: The results
of the autopsy on Logan revealed the extent of what
he endured in his home.
00:19:53
He had suffered 56 injuries. Among the injuries
found on Logan's body was serious injuries
to his abdomen,
00:20:01
which had caused a large
amount of blood loss. And there was two
brain injuries,
00:20:07
which had been caused by
blunt force impact in the days leading up to his death.
00:20:12
One doctor said that
these sort of injuries were normally seen in people who
had fallen from a great height
00:20:17
or in a high-velocity car crash. NARRATOR: Further
research revealed the fatal injury
was a culmination
00:20:24
to months of suffering. Logan, unfortunately,
has a history of abuse within the family.
00:20:30
People have come forward,
who know the family, have recounted this abuse. About a year
before Logan's death,
00:20:37
he was taken to
hospital by Angharad, who believed he was suffering
a dislocated shoulder.
00:20:42
In fact, he had fractured
one of his bones and was in severe pain. Angharad later told police that
she had popped Logan's shoulder
00:20:52
back into place after he
had fallen down the stairs and sent him to bed with Calpol.
00:20:58
NARRATOR: It was also revealed
that a lack of communication with Social Services resulted
in a series of missed
00:21:04
chances to protect Logan. John Cole had a bit
of a checkered past. He had convictions
for petty crime,
00:21:14
like robbery and
burglary and battery. Because of Cole's
previous convictions, Social Services became
involved of Logan.
00:21:22
He had his own social
worker, who sort of would look in on the family. NARRATOR: In the same month
that Logan was murdered,
00:21:29
Social Services made one
of their regular checks on the family. When Social Services went to
visit Logan at home in July,
00:21:38
he had contracted COVID. So he was isolated and
didn't get to see him, weren't able to visibly
check that he was OK.
00:21:48
We should have had some
concern about how is he? What's going on with him? While they described
Angharad as overbearing,
00:21:57
they believed that she loved
her child and cared for him. At first, suspicious of
John and his demeanor,
00:22:03
they came to trust him. Eventually, Logan's
case was downgraded and there was no longer a
need for as much monitoring
00:22:12
as there had been previously. NARRATOR: Shortly after the
visit from Social Services,
00:22:17
Angharad and John
applied for custody of John's stepson, Craig. Like John, he also
had a troubled past.
00:22:26
Craig became involved
with Social Services after he was assaulted by
his biological mother, who
00:22:32
was then sectioned under
the Mental Health Act. He had been in a number of
foster families and in care.
00:22:38
Craig had a history
within Social Services for quite inappropriate
violent behavior and attitudes
00:22:46
towards his foster carers. He wanted to play murder
games with his foster sisters.
00:22:52
He had been torturing
the family pet. And the carers were
quite concerned about how
00:22:58
that behavior was manifesting. Playing really violent games
and fantasizing about murder
00:23:05
or talking about murder,
those are the kinds of things in a 13-year-old that can be
indicative of something called
00:23:11
conduct disorder, which
is what we call kids who sometimes go on
to become psychopaths
00:23:18
or develop psychopathy. When you don't really feel the
same emotions as other kids,
00:23:22
especially empathy. Four out of five of
the kids who have those symptoms will
grow out of them,
00:23:28
and one out of five won't. John and Angharad
were applying for full custody of Craig.
00:23:38
And despite Cole's
previous convictions and Craig's complex needs, he
was granted custody of Craig.
00:23:48
NARRATOR: Five days
later, Logan was murdered. John Cole was sentenced
to life imprisonment
00:23:58
with a minimum of 29 years. Angharad Williamson was
sentenced to life imprisonment
00:24:02
with a minimum of 28 years. More disturbing facts came out
in the trial about how Logan
00:24:08
was treated by Angharad and John
Cole when he was in their care. Logan was made to do
press-ups when he was naughty
00:24:17
and that John Cole would
sit over him and make sure he completed a
number of exercises
00:24:22
in order to punish him. He was also denied food. When the family were having a
KFC, because of his behavior,
00:24:31
he was told he wasn't
allowed to have food and was just given a
bowl of cereal to eat.
00:24:36
Neighbors also described
seeing Logan being made to stand outside in
the cold with no shoes
00:24:42
on as punishment. And at one point, the social
worker discovered that there was a burn on his neck.
00:24:48
The reason given for this
was that he had burnt it on a hot bath tap,
but Cole later
00:24:55
claimed that Angharad had placed
a hot coffee spoon on his neck. In my opinion, there wasn't a
shred of remorse between them.
00:25:04
Angharad Williamson
continued to be self-pitying and maintained her innocence,
while John Cole pathetically
00:25:10
looked at the floor and
claimed that he had nothing to do with Logan's death. And Mulligan was
sentenced to life
00:25:17
detention in the Young
Offenders Institute with a minimum of 15 years. Usually, anonymity is
maintained for children
00:25:28
because there is this assumption
that the things that you do in your childhood are going
to be different than the adult
00:25:33
you're going to grow
into, and you shouldn't have to carry that
baggage with you
00:25:37
forever because of bad decisions
you made with a brain that wasn't fully developed
in the circumstances
00:25:42
where you were a
dependent, where society is really supposed
to be taking care of you.
00:25:46
And so your failures are
reflecting on us, as society, not just on you as the child.
00:25:51
And so the fact that
anonymity is waived is usually because
it's seen as to be so much in the public
interest, and it's balanced
00:26:00
against the risk to the kid. And it's seen as more important
that the society knows who
00:26:05
this person is than it is that
the kid is protected, which is really tricky. The CCTV footage
in this case was
00:26:16
the main evidence which
led to the convictions of the three murderers. Without that, we would never
have known how Logan left
00:26:22
the house, whether he
left of his own accord or whether the truth of what
happened, that he had been
00:26:28
murdered inside the
house and his body discarded by his
stepfather and stepbrother.
00:26:35
Again, the footage of
Angharad's behavior, as well, was also crucial. It showed that this
was not a mother
00:26:43
who was scared for her child. It was someone who
was taking part in an elaborate
performance to cover
00:26:48
up what had actually happened. When news of Logan's death
broke out in the village
00:26:53
where he lived and
went to school, the reaction was one
of complete horror. The fact that a young,
innocent, five-year-old
00:26:59
child had been found dead in
the river was horrifying enough. But to think that three people
had been arrested on suspicion
00:27:06
of his murder was
absolutely horrifying for members of the community. The abuse and treatment
experienced by Logan
00:27:14
in the months leading
up to his death must have been
absolutely horrific. He was a young,
small, innocent boy
00:27:21
who was being abused and
mistreated by the very two people who were meant to love
and protect him and provide
00:27:26
a safe home for him. And he was given
anything but that. He must have lived a
very lonely and painful
00:27:32
existence during that time. He'll never be forgotten by
the community as a very sweet,
00:27:38
young boy who just met
the most horrendous end at the hands of
those who should have
00:27:42
loved him and cared for him. NARRATOR: Almost every
crime now contains some kind
00:27:55
of digital fingerprint. Particularly for
homicide investigations, the inclusion of
video footage is
00:28:01
considered the gold standard. Local law enforcement
agencies often rely on home security,
business, and street cameras
00:28:09
to catch offenders who would
otherwise get away with it. Stellenbosch, South Africa.
00:28:22
2017. Aron Hyman is a journalist for
"The Times" and "Sunday Times," in the Western Cape.
00:28:29
A very typical,
small student town. You have these mountains
all around you. These rolling hills with
vineyards, just this perfectly
00:28:41
quaint little town. NARRATOR: It was also home to
21-year-old Hannah Cornelius. Hannah Cornelius was a young
student at the University
00:28:54
of Stellenbosch. She was a wonderful, soft,
loving person to her friends and everybody that she knew.
00:29:04
NARRATOR: Kirsty Bennett
is a criminal psychologist. Hannah was described
by family and friends
00:29:10
as a very empathetic,
compassionate, young woman. NARRATOR: Hannah
had many friends,
00:29:15
including Cheslin Marsh. He was studying theology. Also, just a young,
carefree man,
00:29:23
trying to get
through his studies and enjoying life
as a young student. NARRATOR: 27th of May.
00:29:32
6:00 AM. A couple woke up to the
sound of someone in distress. The owners of
the house came out,
00:29:41
saw that this young man
was in incredible distress and bleeding. NARRATOR: It was Cheslin Marsh.
00:29:49
He had gaping
wounds on his head. He was in a terrible
traumatic and emotional state.
00:29:56
They called the police. NARRATOR: Cheslin
explained that he and Hannah had been kidnapped
in her car by three men.
00:30:05
Hannah, as a student, had
a blue VW Golf that she had inherited from her grandmother.
00:30:14
He described Hannah's vehicle,
so the blue city Volkswagen, and he described
his four attackers.
00:30:22
NARRATOR: Cheslin told them
that Hannah was still missing, but the police already
had information
00:30:28
about a young woman. She was found at 6:30 AM,
on Saturday, the 27th of May, by workers at a nearby farm.
00:30:40
NARRATOR: She had been
declared dead at the scene. She was found face down
and with severe wounds
00:30:48
to her head and stab wounds
to the back of her neck. NARRATOR: With Cheslin's
help, the body was
00:30:55
quickly identified as Hannah. Cheslin told the police
about the traumatic events
00:31:02
of the night before. Friday nights in
Stellenbosch, it's bubbly. It's buzzing. They'd been out dancing.
00:31:12
They'd been playing dominoes. They'd been out for quite a
while, having a nice time.
00:31:16
Quite early in the morning,
Hannah and Cheslin had left a local bar, got into
the car, and Hannah
00:31:23
had actually offered to drop
Cheslin back at his home. The two of them
parked in a parking lot.
00:31:32
NARRATOR: Police looked at CCTV
footage from the night before. You can clearly
see this Volkswagen
00:31:39
hatchback standing there. Hannah and Cheslin are in
the vehicle at this point. NARRATOR: Emi
Polito is an expert
00:31:48
witness and video analyst. Four individuals are
walking towards the camera. We can start identifying
them in the sense
00:31:58
that potentially, we are
looking at four males here. We can even get
to the point where
00:32:04
we can talk a little bit
about the clothing ensemble and what they're wearing. They appear to
come back into view
00:32:12
from a different direction. You can see the men
looking at the car while they're
walking past it, as
00:32:19
though they're scoping it out. What is it that
these guys are doing at this time in the morning?
00:32:29
You can see the men basically
approach the car from two directions, both
from the driver's
00:32:35
side, where Hannah
Cornelius was sitting and from the passenger side. The driver's seat window
was slightly open.
00:32:44
Thrusts a hand through,
gripping a screwdriver, and he puts the screwdriver
with the sharp end
00:32:54
pointed at her chest. Cheslin then tries to grab the
screwdriver, and at that point,
00:33:03
another assailant gets into
the back seat of the car and opens a flick knife
and points it at Cheslin.
00:33:12
One of the assailants tells
him, quiet or she dies. I'm seeing random
flashes of light which
00:33:23
are suspicious to
me, in terms of could this be some request for help? Hannah is pleading with
them and telling them,
00:33:31
please take whatever you
want but please, let us go. At that point, one of the
men walks away, presumably
00:33:42
with some of the stolen goods. And the rest of the three men
put Hannah in between the two
00:33:48
front seats, and Cheslin
is in the back seat with one of the other
assailants, who is armed.
00:33:54
And then they drive off. NARRATOR: The
assailants reassured Cheslin and Hannah that
they just needed their car.
00:34:08
They just want
to drive somewhere, and then they're going
to drop them off. And they'll be let go.
00:34:14
Everything will be fine. The next time we see Hannah is
about seven kilometers outside
00:34:23
of Stellenbosch on sort
of a rural back road running in between farmland. It's quite a quiet place.
00:34:31
NARRATOR: Cheslin
told police that they stopped at a gas station. Detectives source
the CCTV footage
00:34:38
and found the blue Volkswagen
pulling in at 4:34 AM. We see a passenger
occupying the passenger seat.
00:34:48
I think it would be quite
reasonable to assume that this is Hannah. Between the time that they
left Stellenbosch and the time
00:34:57
that they arrived
at the gas station, the hijackers had taken
Cheslin out of the car
00:35:03
and put him in the boot. One of the hijackers then
gets out of the vehicle, and at this point, he's
got Cheslin's bank card.
00:35:13
He then walks to the
ATM, and he attempts to draw cash inside a
shop at the gas station.
00:35:22
This is now a
considerable amount of time where this person is
attempting to withdraw
00:35:27
money out of the ATM. And I'm seeing different
screens flashing and fingers doing all sort
of things on the keyboard.
00:35:35
He kind of appears to
be leaving the scene deflated and disappointed. Cheslin, he gave the hijackers
the wrong PIN code to his bank
00:35:46
card, presumably to
buy time for them or perhaps he just didn't
want them to steal his money.
00:35:54
This CCTV footage
is the last time that Hannah was captured alive. It's clear at this point
that the men are becoming
00:36:09
more volatile, more irate. They are angry and
aggressive with Cheslin. They take him to sort
of a forested area.
00:36:18
They force him out of
the boot of the vehicle and order him to
lay his head down
00:36:22
on a hard surface on a rock. And two men come and stand over
him with bricks broken in half.
00:36:29
And at that moment, he
closes his eyes and he prays. And that's the last
thing he can remember.
00:36:41
When they get back
into the vehicle, Hannah is there with three
men, who had taken her.
00:36:48
There's going to
be a point of time where she realizes that they
don't intend to let her live,
00:36:55
and she is going to die. NARRATOR: The men drove
Hannah into some farmland, where she was
sexually assaulted.
00:37:06
When we look at
certain crimes, we may not have had
the specific intention of committing such awful
acts, like rape or murder.
00:37:15
But sometimes we work on the
opportunity that it's there. It's available. We have a victim that
we can offend against.
00:37:23
It's going to be really hard
to decide not to take part, because you run
the risk of losing
00:37:29
your position in
the gang, maybe not being trusted by your peers. So once that decision
is made, you've
00:37:35
really got to go with what
everybody else is doing. From there, they
took a large rock,
00:37:44
and they put her
head on the floor. And they crushed her head
with this rock, twice.
00:37:55
And then they stabbed her
in the back of her neck to make sure that she was dead
00:38:00
NARRATOR: Hannah's
body was found and reported a few hours later. But the three men
did not stop there.
00:38:09
The men drive around. They smoke drugs. They then kidnap another
woman and take her bank card
00:38:20
from her, drive her
to a petrol station, and attempt to draw money. She is in the back of the
car, when two of the offenders
00:38:30
get out and they withdraw
3,000 rand from her account. They look like
they're just going on
00:38:37
about their normal day,
going into petrol station, withdrawing money. They don't look agitated.
00:38:42
They look very calm. They look like they've been
doing it for a long time, and they're comfortable with it.
00:38:48
It doesn't look like they
are improvising or panicking. Just normal business for them.
00:38:56
It shows the lack of remorse
and lack of emotional attachment or even understanding
what just has happened.
00:39:07
They drop her off
and release her, and then drive back
towards Stellenbosch. NARRATOR: Police issued
a "be on the lookout"
00:39:17
for the blue Volkswagen
and three men. Police detective vehicle,
driving along a road near
00:39:25
Stellenbosch, actually
spots the blue Volkswagen Golf and starts
pursuing it, leading
00:39:32
to a high-speed car chase. The detectives pursued them and
chased them down a farm road.
00:39:45
These people have got
no intention of stopping. They don't care about the damage
or hurt that they leave behind.
00:39:55
ARON HYMAN: They basically
reach a dead end, and the men jump
out of the vehicle.
00:40:01
You can see the detectives
chasing two men. At that stage, one of the men
had already been dropped off.
00:40:09
And the detectives then
apprehend both men as they try to flee into a riverbed. NARRATOR: The two men
were identified as Geraldo
00:40:20
Parsons and Vernon Witbooi. They are taken
in for questioning, and the police then
find out that these two
00:40:31
men had been to prison. They have a criminal
history, and they are part of a prominent
South African gang.
00:40:42
NARRATOR: The third man was
identified as Eben Van Niekerk. A fourth man, Nashville Julius,
was also arrested for taking
00:40:50
part in the initial carjacking. Vernon and Nashville
gave confessions because the police had convinced
them that their friends were
00:40:59
talking. And the police had
convinced them that they had credible cases against them.
00:41:17
Those men are just
viewing her as an object. She means nothing to them. And there's no concern on their
behalf about how she feels,
00:41:26
how she is experiencing
that moment, because it's about their
own gain and gratification.
00:41:34
It's about October 2018
when the trial starts in the Cape Town High Court. Their demeanor in
court was stoic.
00:41:44
They would often
smirk and laugh. And when Cheslin had to testify,
they tried to intimidate him
00:41:53
in the witness stand. The four men were not really
taking things very seriously.
00:41:58
They were laughing,
joking amongst themselves. We don't really see
them showing any remorse
00:42:03
for the various crimes
that they've committed. For the family, that's horrific
to know that how they treated
00:42:10
their daughter in her
last moments was awful, and they think it's a joke. NARRATOR: The three main
perpetrators, Geraldo Parsons,
00:42:19
Eben Van Niekerk,
and Vernon Witbooi were given life sentences. They will spend
25 years in prison
00:42:28
without the
possibility of parole. NARRATOR: Nashville Julius
was sentenced to 15 years.
00:42:34
The CCTV footage was crucially
important in this case. Without it, they might not have
been able to piece together
00:42:47
some of the key
details that basically tied the men to the crimes. And they might even not
have been able to verify
00:42:59
Cheslin's testimony. NARRATOR: Cheslin Marsh
was left deaf in one ear. It's probably one of the only
positives of this whole story
00:43:11
is that Cheslin
miraculously survived and that he went
on to live a life. He's studying law.
00:43:23
He's married. He's got kids. It must take incredible strength
for a person to ever recover
00:43:29
from something like that. NARRATOR: Hannah's family was
left with a lifetime of grief.
00:43:37
Hannah's mother started the
Hannah Cornelius Foundation in a nearby underprivileged
community, which
00:43:45
helps with early childhood
development for street kids and kids that come out of
difficult household situations.
00:43:54
NARRATOR: A year
later, more tragedy for Hannah's family, when
her mother went for a swim
00:43:59
in the ocean. She was swept out
at sea and drowned, but there's also
others who suspect
00:44:07
that maybe the psychological
toll was too much for her and that she might have
taken her own life.
00:44:17
The murder of Hannah
Cornelius had a big impact on South African society. Out of all the women,
and especially,
00:44:26
young women, children who
are being raped and murdered in South Africa, Hannah's
case was, I think,
00:44:33
particularly shocking
in its brutality. There were a lot
of conversations afterwards about women's
rights in South Africa,
00:44:42
about how violent we are as a
society, about how patriarchal our society is,
how men view women.
00:44:51
And I think there was
a lot of reflection from South African society. I think the courts
and the police
00:45:01
were sensitized to
these sorts of cases. There was a lot of
public outpouring. I remember when
they were sentenced,
00:45:09
the gallery was full
of people who had just come to watch the case. And they cried out in joy,
but also, I guess, in anger.
00:45:22
[CROWD SCREAMING] The positives, I
guess, is the fact that we started
confronting, as a society,
00:45:31
the underlying problems
that lead to men going through the criminal
justice system
00:45:35
and coming out of the
criminal justice system after having served
time for the same crimes
00:45:41
that they would like
to commit again. But we still have
so many lessons to learn from that,
because after that,
00:45:48
there were so many other
women who were raped and killed in South Africa. [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:46:04
[THEME MUSIC]