23rd. You don’t have to ring me before
you go. You must be there at about 8
p.m. so that you can see that her young
boy goes to school and the daughter
drives to work. Give it about 15 minutes
and then you can go to work.
“Just remember that you must not
forget your gloves. If you think it will
be better or quicker, then use a knife,
but the job must be done. Let me know
when you have finished, and don’t ring
me and say that you couldn’t do it again
because then I’ll twist your neck for you.
Do you understand?”
Still hesitant, he phoned her. “It
seemed to me I was scared because I
was bewitched by her,” he said. “I had
no power against her.” She was insistent.
‘Marthinus, you must do the job for
me,’ she said. ‘Use anything. I’ll pick you
up in the car and take you to Bellville.
And bring a hammer with you.’”
Marlene duly gave him a lift to
Bellville, slipped him 50 cents for the
phone call to her after he had done the
murder, and drove away. He said: “I felt
in my heart, well, Marthinus, you are
now going to murder a person. That was
all that was going on in my heart. When
I got to the gate the order in my heart
told me, put on your gloves, as she said.
“I opened the gate and went in. I
climbed the steps very slowly – I am
unsteady on the one side. I rang the bell,but she wouldn’t open the door.”
Something was warning him, he went
on – he was frightened. He had already
decided to give up, and limped painfully
back to the road. Meanwhile, inside the
house, Susanna van der Linde, who
had spotted him through the window,
was frantically phoning the police. A
few minutes later they picked him up,
limping down the road half a mile from
the house.
He wanted to explain why
he was there, but a sergeant
said, ‘Shut up. We’re going
to thrash you.’ At the police
station a constable beat him
up, but amazingly he wasn’t
searched. If he had been they
would have found Marlene’s
letter, telling him how to
murder Susanna, in his
pocket.
A few days later Marlene
wrote another letter, this
one to Chris van der Linde.
It revealed that their romance had
spectacularly collapsed, and it also
revealed the extent of her heartbreak. It
read:
“My darling, what have you done to me?“You told me you
couldn’t live without
me, you thought of me
all the time. I gave up
everything that I had
to give up, but yet youwouldn’t give me an inch”
You’ve ruined me forever. The man I loved
so much, who I could talk to, who meant
the world to me, who comforted me, has
just discarded me. I wish I could die. I will
never forgive you for what you’ve done to
me.
“Every night you’d say how much you
love me but that was false pretence. Is it
so easy after all this time to give me up?
You told me you couldn’t live without me,
you thought of me all the time. I gave up
everything that I had to give up, but yet
you wouldn’t give me an
inch.
“You have been really
selfish although you won’t
admit it. Having a home
and having me as long
as I don’t complain. You
know where your bread
was buttered.
“You got everything
you needed physically and
emotionally from me, so
you didn’t have anything
to complain about when
you got home...What
about the promise you
made to me? No matter
what happens, you’d
never give me up. You’d
always make a plan. You said
to me that if anything had to
happen to your wife you’d look
after me. What is the difference
if you divorced her now or
you waited a year or two till
she died of maybe a nervous
breakdown?
“My darling: If you loved
me so dearly as you put it to
me, won’t you do something?
I’ll forever love you and I’ll
wait for you, praying that
you’ll come back to me.”
Only hours after she had
written that letter, at the end of October,
1974, Marlene gave in her notice at the
orthopaedic workshop. She had a job in
Johannesburg to go to, she said; she had
always wanted to go to Johannesburg.She said a fond goodbye to her lover- a parting that, superficially at least,
seemed to indicate that there was no ill
feeling.
Marlene could have left it just like
that, but she didn’t. On Monday
morning, November 4th, she and
Marthinus Choegoe were heading
back to the van der Lindes’ Gladstone
Street house in Bellville. According to
Choegoe, as they drove there Marlene
told him again, “Marthinus, if you
do this thing, I’ll buy you the car I
promised you and then you can have
sex with me.”
When they arrived at the house, he
said, Marlene went in first, to engage
Susanna in conversation. Choegoe
followed her a few minutes later, and
on sight of him Susanna picked up the
phone to call the police.
Choegoe said: “Miss Marlene ran
towards her and hit her with the pistol
butt on the left jaw. Then she jumped
on her. I helped Miss Marlene because
I can’t move fast – I was bewitched by
her. I had to do it. I throttled the woman
half dead. Next Miss Marlene told me
to take some scissors off the table and
stab three holes in the woman’s heart.
“The woman was then half-conscious
on the floor and I took the scissors andAbove, Chris van
der Linde in the
living-room where his
wife was murderedThe murder house in Bellville. Below left, Zelde
van der Linde, who found her mother’s body