tempted. Her words were: ‘What are
you waiting for?’ This so inflamed me
that I committed myself completely to
the deed. Half-way, I realised what I was
doing and stopped immediately.”
“Why did you not, before you started,
come to the decision to do nothing?”
“I believe I am human like any other
human.”
“What I do not understand is why,
half-way, you decided, for no reason, to
stop?”
“That’s what I did. If you cannot
admire it, I can admire the fact that I
stopped.”
The judge: “I think we should go on
to something else. I don’t think we are
making much progress.”
Van der Linde was next asked: “You
let Marlene know that maybe, one day,
after your wife had passed away, there
would perhaps be a chance for the two
of you?”
He replied: “That’s right. That is
completely right.”
“And you knew she was desperate,
and very much in love with you?”
“Yes.”
“As far as
Marlene was
concerned, the
position was that
your wife stood
between you?”
“No. I wouldn’t
say that. I would
not allow any
person to stand
between me and
my wife.”
Summing-up,
the Attorney-
General, Mr. E. O.
Harewood, told the
court that Marlene
had been plotting
Susanna’s murder
for months. She
was, he said, “cold-blooded, ruthless and
brazen.” The defence suggestion that
she was under Van der Linde’s influence
had been torn to pieces by the evidence.
It was left to the judge in his
summing-up to put Chris van der Linde
in perspective as far as the trial was
concerned. “The fact that he made a
bad impression in the witness-box, that
he showed himself to be sanctimonious
and self-righteous, that he seemed
satisfied, rather than ashamed, of the
ignominious role he played, is not,
strictly speaking, relevant.
“He is not charged with seducing a
young woman. That is not the issue. The
only issue is whether the defendants
murdered Susanna van der Linde.
That has been proved as clearly as it is
possible to prove a murder in a court
of law. And I can find no extenuating
circumstances.”
Pandemonium broke out as both
Marlene and Choegoe were sentenced
to death. Some wept, some screamed,
some fainted. Marlene bit her lip.
Choegoe tried to say something, but
the noise drowned him out. Outside the
courthouse, police with dogs had to
control the crowd.
After the sentence psychiatrists and
mind experts moved in on Marlene
behind the scenes, desperate to prove
that she was mentally abnormal.
They failed in that, but what they
discovered was that she was about
half of everything she shouldn’t
have been She was not a psychopath
but she had marked psychopathic
tendencies; she had a psychopathic
disorder that was “at least mitigating;”
she was mildly schizophrenic and
mildly depressive; there was nothing
pathological in her make-up but some
aspects were obsessional; she was
without remorse, remote, and able to
dissociate herself completely from the
crime.
Why? They explained that many of
her personality problems were formed
in childhood. Her parents were very
hard up and couldn’t afford another
child when they realised that Marlene,
their second daughter, was on the way.
When she was born, for many yearschange of personality, and habitual loss
of memory, suggested that the car crash
had caused damage to the pre-frontal
lobe of his brain. He was extremely
remorseful.
He was undeniably much influenced
by Marlene, who was a white woman
and thus enjoyed superior status, in a
country where at that time it was much
more comfortable to be white than to be
black.
In the event, Marlene was at first
refused leave to appeal against her death
sentence. But Choegoe was granted
leave to appeal. The appeal denial
against Marlene was later overturned
and the two killers accordingly
appeared before the Appeal Court at
Bloemfontein on July 23rd, 1975. In
both cases the death sentence was set
aside. Marlene was jailed for 20 years
and Choegoe for 15 years.
In all the circumstances it seemed
about right. But South Africans argued
among each other for years – and
continue to argue – about whether
justice was done when Marlene was
spared the hangman’s noose.
One man who believed it was right
was Chris van der Linde. He had prayed
for the reprieve, he said. But the case
severely traumatised him. He went off
to live the life of a recluse in a tiny,
remote cottage on the same farm where
Susanna was born in the Magaliesberg.
His last words before he left Cape Town:
“I’m finished with females. They’re
dangerous.”
Except for one female, that is – his
wife Susanna. Her body was buried in
the nearby graveyard, a stone’s throw
from his cottage, and he was said to feel
at peace just by being close to her. He
died there in 1983.
Marlene Lehnberg went on to serve
11 years behind bars and was released
in December 1986. Choegoe, who was
paroled six months earlier than his
fellow-killer, in June 1986, went on to
become an evangelical preacher and
died in a car accident in 1992.
Marlene spent years in relative
obscurity. She suffered from
osteoporosis and had been
diagnosed with breast cancer when
she committed suicide, five days
before her 60th birthday, in October
2015.they found it difficult to accept that
they had a second daughter. The harsh
religious environment of her upbringing
made it difficult for her to make friends,
and the sudden discovery, at 16, of
Chris van der Linde, her “father figure,”
put her in a state of severe emotional
turmoil.
She was extraordinarily indifferent
to her fate, and just as indifferent to
the fate of others. She felt nothing for
her victim. She was relieved, she said,
when the murder was committed, and
as far as she was concerned it was now
in the past. She didn’t worry at all
about Choegoe, and blamed Chris van
der Linde for the murder because by
discussing marriage with her he had put
the idea into her head.
There were more tangible reasons
to feel sympathetic towards Marthinus
Choegoe. In the car accident in which
he lost his leg in 1972 he also suffered
severe head injuries. He was in hospital
for six months and his subsequentThe dye gun (top left), Choegoe’s
pistol and the bloodstained
scissors used to murder SusannaMarlene’s
letter to her
accomplice,
which was used
in evidence at
her trial