F
ORTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD Mrs. Susanna van der Linde
had just settled down for morning coffee with her teenage
daughter Zelde in the living-room of her smart suburban
home in Bellville, Cape Town, when the phone rang. She put
down her cup and picked up the receiver.
“Mrs. van der Linde?” the woman caller said. Before Susanna
could reply, the caller continued: “My name is Marlene Lehnberg
and I work at your husband’s office. I think you should know I’m
in love with him and I see him every night. We have sex regularly.
What are you going to do about it?”
Susanna van der Linde’s hand began to shake and she looked
uneasily across the room at Zelde. When she was sufficiently
recovered from the shock, she replied icily: “I will speak to my
husband this evening.” Then she rang off.
She did speak to her husband that evening. The
conversation was not documented, but next day Chris
van der Linde challenged his teenage lover Marlene.
“Why did you call my wife last night?” he demanded.“Because I love you,” Marlene replied.
“You’d better find someone else to
take you home after work,” van der
Linde snorted.
Marlene was to say: “He was cross
about it, and he didn’t take me home
that evening. But the next day things
were normal again.”
The next few days were difficult ones
for Susanna van der Linde, and not just
on account of her husband’s cheating. She
had seen a crippled man, a “Cape coloured,”
loitering around the front of her house, and,
living in a country where violence and murder
are everyday occurrences, she was scared.
When she was out shopping she bought a dye
gun, one that fires a stream of coloured dye at the
victim, as a measure of self-protection. She decided
not to open the front door to anyone before she had
scrutinised them from the window.
Three weeks later Marlene Lehnberg phoned Susanna
again. “Can we meet?” she asked. “I feel we ought to have a
chat together.” Susanna agreed a rendezvous at her home during
Marlene’s lunch hour that very same day.When teenage model Marlene
Lehnberg met handsome,
married Chris van der Linde at
work in Cape Town, sparks lew.
But the passionate affair would
have tragic consequences...
DEATH SENTENCE FOR
SCISSOR-KILLER MARLENE
Case recalled by
MARTIN LOMAX34 Murder Most Foul Death Sentence For Scissor-Killer Marlene