EXCLUSIVE | WATCH: How Joburg killer fled to Brazil with a fake passport
- Gerhard Jansen van Vuuren placed his father at the centre of his escape plan to Brazil.
- He fled nearly two years after he stabbed his ex-lover Andrea Venter, slit her throat and then his own throat in 2011.
- In exclusive footage obtained by News24, Jansen van Vuuren can be seen walking into an East Rand bank branch, where he supposedly paid for his flight out of the country.
Gerhard Jansen van Vuuren placed his deceased father at the centre of his escape plan to Brazil, days before he was supposed to be tried for the murder of his ex-lover Andrea Venter.
Jansen van Vuuren was in custody for about seven months before being granted bail. He absconded before the trial and fled to Brazil in 2013, where he lived until he was extradited to South Africa in 2020.
Jansen van Vuuren stabbed Venter several times, slit her throat, and then slit his own throat at Venter’s apartment in Lonehill, Johannesburg, in 2011.
He survived and woke up from a coma days after the attack.
In exclusive footage obtained by News24, Jansen van Vuuren can be seen walking into an East Rand bank branch just after 13:00 on 15 May 2013.
According to a source with impeccable knowledge of the investigation, this is when he paid for his flight ticket to Brazil, which he bought online.
The source said:
They told News24 that Jansen van Vuuren had manipulated a friend to reapply for a passport, but supplied a photo of himself to be included in the renewal.
"Later, a plane ticket was booked online, and Jansen van Vuuren went into the bank to pay for it. On the day he left, his father drove him to King Shaka International Airport, and he boarded an Emirates flight to Dubai, then Brazil. South Africans don’t need visas to enter Brazil.
"The plan had been concocted before he got bail, when he had met two Brazilians awaiting trial that he befriended. The Brazilians' case was withdrawn against them around the time Jansen van Vuuren got bail in the High Court at the end of 2011," the source said.
During cross-examination in the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg on Wednesday, advocate Rolene Barnard, for the State, honed in on Jansen van Vuuren’s plan to skip his trial and flee to Brazil.
Jansen van Vuuren told the court that he was not "exactly sure how the plan worked" and that there were people involved in hatching the plan.
"Who was involved?" Barnard asked.
Jansen van Vuuren replied: "My father mostly." He told the court he was only involved to a certain extent and that his father was the mastermind behind the plan.
Barnard also questioned him on the relationship with two Brazilian nationals he met in prison in South Africa.
"Was that possibly where this plan to flee to Brazil came from?"
Jansen van Vuuren denied this, saying they were just friends, and that they had also met his parents.
"We became friends. Afterward, I also took them to the airport after they got free of their charges," he said.
He said they had remained in contact when the two returned to Brazil, and that he had also reached out to one of them during his time in the country.
"Did they assist you in Brazil?" Barnard asked.
Jansen van Vuuren replied: "No, but also yes, sort of... I asked them for a bit of help."
He confessed to travelling to Brazil with a false passport his father helped him obtain and declined to answer any further questions about fleeing to Brazil.
Social worker Carina Wolmarans, who did a pre-sentencing report on Jansen van Vuuren, testified that he was the breadwinner for his family in Brazil.
During his time in Brazil, Jansen van Vuuren met Sabrina Oliveira. They share a three-year-old child.
Wolmarans said Jansen van Vuuren was involved in a project where he developed software for a company in Rio de Janeiro, adding that he was still receiving funds from one of the contracts he established.
"The accused mentioned that he utilises these funds to support Ms Sabrina Oliveira and her children."
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According to Wolmarans, their relationship was "serious from the beginning", and they had later moved in together.
"Ms Oliveira confirmed that she had no knowledge of the accused’s past and also had no knowledge of this matter pending against the accused.
"She was very surprised to learn about the incident. She was shocked and upset when the accused was arrested," Wolmarans said in her report.
The court also heard that, before he fled to Brazil, Jansen van Vuuren was dating Jeanine Venter, who is the mother of his twin boys.
She only found out about the pending case against him months after they started dating.
Jansen van Vuuren is expected to be sentenced on 5 August.
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