Pretoria - The hopes of a widow from Stellenbosch implicated in her winemaker husband’s assassination in order to inherit his millions have been dashed.
Last week, the court hammered a final nail in her coffin by applying the ancient doctrine of “the bloody hand does not inherit”.
The murder trial of Zurenah Smit, the wife of murdered Wynand Stefanus Smit, is still proceeding and she, together with her co-accused Derek Sait and Steven Damon, is facing an array of charges, including murder and house robbery.
Smit, who feared for his wife’s safety and that of his properties after an illegal occupation on his land, hired security and appointed Bradley Shawn van Eysland to guard her and his property, especially his homestead, the Louisenhof Farm.
Zurenah and Van Eysland soon developed a close relationship and she confided her unhappiness in her marriage and intimated that she wanted to have her husband killed.
According to the indictment before the court, Van Eysland did not take much note of Zurenah’s words, but she persisted with him to set up a plan.
He then allegedly told her he knew someone who could assist and approached Sait who worked as a security guard on the farm.
It is alleged the group agreed on staging a house robbery in which Smit would be killed.
The trio decided they needed a witness. A guest was invited for supper with Zurenah and Smit on June 2, 2019.
The indictment states Van Eysland and Zurenah deliberately left the door open through which Eysland, Sait and Damon entered and shot and killed Smit.
The guest was robbed of her belongings while Zurenah was “robbed” of her cellphone, but left unharmed. Some of those implicated are said to have turned State witnesses.
Zurenah is further accused of forging her mother-in-law’s (Smit’s mother) will and removing her children and grandchildren as major beneficiaries.
It is alleged she bequeathed only R150 000 to each and nominated herself as sole heir to the remainder of the estate.
It is further alleged she forged a document which gave her power of attorney and full control over her husband’s assets, his pension and an undisclosed number of diamonds currently in safekeeping in Germany.
Zurenah, who is out on bail, meanwhile turned to the Western Cape High Court for an urgent order declaring that the “will my husband made five months before his death” should be accepted as his true wish for her to inherit all.
Smit’s children opposed the application, but did not testify as they “have a fear as a result of the manner in which their father had died”.
After Smit was shot, his widow moved in with a family friend as she was “too emotional to remain on the farm”. She also didn’t attend the reading of the will after the funeral, as she said it was the wrong will and she was still searching for the “correct version”.
The friend said she became suspicious about the will, as Zurenah gave various versions of where she found “the true will”. At first she said it was in a drawer in the house, but the friend doubted this as Smit was a meticulous person who would not leave it in a drawer.
The second version was that she found it in her husband’s safe, and Zurenah said the attorney “turned red” when he saw that she was nominated as the executor. The third version was that she found the will in her late husband’s Bible “in the presence of the dominee (priest)”.
She also claimed that she had discovered other documents, including one in a drawer, signed by her husband, in which he made it clear that the vast majority of his estate, and trusts had to go to her. He also bequeath R7 million in cash to her.
The investigating officer in the murder trial testified about the night he arrived on the farm after the shooting. He said the farm, Louisenhof, could be described as a “smoking gun affair”.
Judge Babalwa Mantame found that Zurenah was unworthy to inherit, even if the documents weren’t false, as the “bloody hand cannot inherit”.
Pretoria News