Nephew sentenced for the murder of Magistrate aunt
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The High Court in the Western Cape Division has handed down a 20 years imprisonment to a young man in connection with his aunt who was also a Magistrate.
Roman Van Rooyen was strangled to death by her nephew, Cassidy Hartzenberg following a short disagreement when he had asked her for money, which she refused. It was later on found during a confession that the young man who was 18 years old at the time only wanted to satisfy his drug addiction.
Van Rooyen’s corpse was discovered a day later, September 10th, 2022 following several calls by her sister that were left unattended as her body laid cold on the floor.
The convicted nephew said that he visited her on the day of her murder to ask for financial assistance for a job application. While they were sitting in the lounge he asked her, but she refused, got up and went into her bedroom. He followed her and she was facing away from him when he entered her bedroom.
He put his hands around her neck and strangled her. She resisted and fought for her life. He claims he could not stop what he was doing and could not control his anger. She fell to the ground, and he realised what he had done as she was no longer breathing. He ran to the lounge to find her cell phone so that he could call for assistance, but her phone was pin-locked. He didn’t have a phone and out of anger threw her phone on the kitchen floor breaking it.
He also claimed that he panicked and did not know what to do. He stayed with her body until the early hours of the next day and then drove her vehicle to Westgate Mall, Mitchells Plain, and later abandoned it on Jakes Gerwel Road, Mitchells Plain.
The court also heard that at the funeral, Hartzenberg who was 18 years then, mourned her death like the rest of the family, her friends, and colleagues while he knew that he had strangled her to death.
While he had no defence for his actions, he also admitted that he had a good relationship with the deceased all-round, emotionally, financially and otherwise but he just doesn’t know what possessed him when he committed the crime.
