‘He has the traits of a psychopath’: the inside story of the parachute murder plot. By Jenny Kleeman
Every year, thousands
of people cross an item off their bucket list by leaping out of an aeroplane
above Netheravon airfield’s broad, flat grass plain. It’s the largest parachute
drop zone in the UK, but unremarkable to look at: military land, little more
than two blue and white Cessnas waiting to take off, a few billowing orange
windsocks and some picnic tables. There’s an enormous khaki hangar with a
corrugated iron roof. This is where the kit room is, where the toilets are, and
where Emile Cilliers tried to get away with murdering his wife.
It was Cilliers’
second attempt to kill Vicky in less than a week. But it took two criminal
trials to prove it, and even after Cilliers was found
guilty of two counts of attempted murder in May, and given a life
sentence with a minimum term of 18 years in June, the victim herself
says she refuses to believe her husband tried to kill her. When someone
survives an attempt on their life, it should be a huge advantage for the police
investigation. But Vicky Cilliers’ survival made it difficult to prosecute;
Emile Cilliers was convicted in spite of her evidence, rather than because of
it.
Why did a 38-year-old
army officer want to kill his wife, the mother of his toddler and newborn baby?
Why do it in such a far-fetched, complicated way? And how close did he come to
getting away with it?.. read more:
