The Western Cape High Court, sitting in Vredendal, sentenced Daniel Smit to effective life imprisonment on Monday, following his conviction for the murder of 13-year-old Jerobejin Van Wyk in February 2022.

Judge Hayley Slingers sentenced Smit to 15 years direct imprisonment for attempted murder, 10 years direct imprisonment for kidnapping, life imprisonment for murder, 5 years direct imprisonment for violating a corpse and 3 years direct imprisonment for defeating the administration of justice.

The sentences will run concurrently, and Smit will serve two-thirds of his sentence before he can be considered eligible for parole.

The murder of Jerobejin sent shock waves through the country due to the gruesome way he was killed.

The 13-year-old and his friend entered Smit’s property in Klawer, and stole fruit from his garden. Smit became angry as he claimed the two boys mocked him when he spoke to them.

He then asked his daughter to open the garage, got into his bakkie and chased them. He turned the vehicle sharply to catch the deceased, hitting him with his bakkie.

Smit picked him up, put him in the back of the vehicle and drove back home. He instructed Jerobejin to get out of the vehicle and follow him into the kitchen. He noticed that he was scared, and told the court he gave him a sandwich and a cold drink.

Smit then broke the boy’s neck and put his body in the freezer.

His daughter, who was the State’s first witness, testified that her father appeared calm and made jokes. They even drove to a tyre shop in Vredendal to change the accused’s vehicle tyre and later had tea with a relative.

They had supper, he made coffee, and she went to sleep as she was not feeling well. The court heard that he gave her, without her consent, sleeping tablets.

He then started a fire in the fireplace using tar poles to create a fire similar to the ones used in a cremation furnace.

Gruesome details emerged in the court, of Smit dismembering and burning body parts, while also placing other body parts in the sewer drain and an oil drum.

When the police arrived at his house asking him about the deceased, he told them that the boy was at his house, but he gave him bread and he left.

In mitigation of the sentence, the accused claimed the influence of the occult and he had diminished responsibility. The State argued he was in control, and not influenced by the occult, just a normal murderer. The judge agreed, saying the murder was executed with shocking brutality and cruelty, and that Smit acted with brazen impunity, and did not even care who witnessed him chasing the deceased or who witnessed him kidnapping Jerobejin.

Western Cape Director of Public Prosecutions, Adv Nicolette Bell, described Jerobejin’s murder as gruesome, and callous and she hoped that his family would find solace in knowing the accused had been sent to jail for a long time.

READ: Jerobejin van Wyk’s mother pens heart-wrenching letter to his killer