Cape Town – Kyle Maspero has described how he and his girlfriend counted down four minutes as he held a rope tightly around her performer mother’s throat.
He said he recoiled when Rosemary Theron, 39, emitted a "huge sigh", but his girlfriend Phoenix Racing Cloud Theron reassured him that the sound was merely "trapped air".
These details were contained in Maspero’s guilty plea, read out by his lawyer and accepted by the Western Cape High Court on Wednesday.
He would therefore not stand trial.
Theron was killed in her Clovelly home on March 7 2013. Her daughter is already serving an effective 15 years in jail in terms of a plea agreement.
Maspero admitted that he had known the difference between right and wrong at the time, despite his copious consumption of dagga and methamphetamine (tik).
The young couple had apparently wanted to enrol Phoenix’s younger stepsister Shariel at a local primary school because she was not being educated at the time.
Theron 'deranged'
An argument broke out over the issue, after which the couple went outside, smoked dagga and plotted Theron's demise.
They agreed that Theron was "deranged" and that with her attitude, Shariel "would be a drug addict by the age of 16".
Maspero said he told his lover it "would be better” if the deceased "wasn’t around".
While Phoenix hugged her mother, he took a rope he found in a pot plant and held it around her neck until she stopped breathing.
Maspero said in his plea, he was absolutely horrified by what they had done.
Two days later, his girlfriend helped carry her mother's body to a shallow grave that Maspero filled up.
About four months later, they moved to a flatlet in Gordon’s Bay on the same property as acquaintance Godfrey Scheepers.
Maspero said they were scared the body may be discovered and he enlisted Scheepers' help to move it to an area of open veld near Baden Powell Drive.
Charges against Scheepers were later withdrawn.
The matter was postponed until November 16 for sentencing procedures.