A 71-year-old South African woman, Susara Johanna de Villiers, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for the premeditated murders of her three great-grandchildren.
The Worcester Regional Court in the Western Cape province imposedC’ imprisonment for each murder but ordered the sentences to run concurrently, meaning she will serve an effective 20-year prison term.
The victims were Caleb Booysen, eight, Gradwell Booysen, five, and Joshua Booysen, two. They died on November 20, 2021, after De Villiers deliberately drove a vehicle carrying them off Bainskloof Pass.
According to evidence presented in court, De Villiers collected the children while their caregiver attended a wedding. They spent the day swimming and playing at her home before she put them in her vehicle, ostensibly to return them to their caregiver.
The court heard that the children cried and begged to remain with her. Before leaving, she reportedly told them to say goodbye to their great-grandfather and assured them that nobody would hurt them again.
Regional Court Prosecutor Cornelius Prinsloo argued that De Villiers drove approximately 23 kilometres in the opposite direction from the children’s home before reaching Bainskloof Pass.
Evidence showed that she passed several traffic-control points before driving through a gap in barriers and plunging down the mountainside. The vehicle came to rest in a riverbed below.
De Villiers survived the crash, but all three children died from multiple blunt-force injuries.
The case also involved an examination of De Villiers’ mental state and her claim that her responsibility had been diminished.
Although she initially pleaded guilty, the prosecutor rejected part of her plea explanation in which she claimed diminished responsibility. The court entered a not-guilty plea on her behalf on that aspect, while accepting the remainder of her statement as formal admissions.
During testimony in November 2025, De Villiers said she had felt unlike herself and that something had changed in her state of mind. She also described uncertainty about the moment she made the decision to drive off the pass.
She was referred to Valkenberg Psychiatric Hospital for a 30-day mental observation. A psychiatric panel found that she was mentally fit, could appreciate the wrongfulness of her actions and was capable of acting in accordance with that understanding. The panel found no evidence of psychosis and described her conduct as goal-directed but impulsive.
The court also heard that the children had previously been removed from their parents’ care because of neglect and substance abuse. They initially lived with De Villiers and her husband before being placed with a maternal relative.
About a week before the incident, their mother and her partner had been arrested on charges relating to child neglect.
In mitigation, De Villiers spoke about her difficult upbringing, poverty, earlier suicide attempts and depression following a vehicle accident in 2020 in which her stepdaughter later died from burn injuries.
Prosecutor Prinsloo argued that her personal circumstances could not outweigh the deliberate killing of three young children entrusted to her care.
The State also presented post-mortem reports, accident-reconstruction evidence and a mechanical analysis of the vehicle.
The National Prosecuting Authority welcomed the sentence and commended investigating officer Warrant Officer Michael Pretorius and prosecutor Prinsloo for their work on the case.
