A 44-year-old man who admitted strangling his wife of 19 years has been jailed for life after being found guilty of her murder.
Anton Mulder, Maelduin, Dunshaughlin, Co Meath, who is originally from South Africa, was yesterday found guilty at the Central Criminal Court of murdering his Irish-born wife, Colleen Suzanne Mulder, at their home on the morning of December 17th, 2004.
Ms Mulder was found dead in an upstairs bedroom of a house they rented, in her pyjamas, after Mr Mulder strangled her with his bare hands.
Mr Mulder, an Afrikaner from Durban, South Africa, admitted the unlawful killing of his wife but denied murdering her.
After spending the night at a hotel, the jury of 10 men and two women returned a unanimous verdict of guilty just after 11.30am yesterday. The jury spent just under five hours considering their verdict.
Mr Mulder, a regional manager with the fast-food outlet Kentucky Fried Chicken, showed no emotion when the verdict was read out. Friends and family of the victim, who were in court, were delighted with the outcome.
In passing the mandatory life sentence, the presiding judge, Justice Philip O'Sullivan, told Mr Mulder "it was a sad day for his family and for all those who had anything to do with him." He refused an application on Mr Mulder's behalf for leave to appeal the verdict. However, he backdated the sentence to when Mr Mulder first went into custody, in February 2005.
During the week-long trial the jury heard that Ms Mulder was born in Bangor, Co Down, and that her family moved to South Africa when she was a child.
In the early nineties she and her husband Mr Mulder, whom she had married in 1985, returned to live in her native Northern Ireland. The couple, who have six children aged between three and 20, moved south in 2002 after Mr Mulder became a regional manager with KFC.
However, their marriage ran into serious difficulty and the couple frequently rowed. Things became particularly strained in July of 2004 when Ms Mulder suffered a miscarriage. Her attitude to her husband changed and they slept in separate rooms.
She left Co Meath to go back to Bangor in November of that year but returned to Dunshaughlin for the Christmas period. Mr Mulder, the court heard, was fearful that his children would be taken from him. He also became aware that his wife had a sexual relationship with another man, Johan De Waal, a South African who was a friend of the family.
On December 17th, 2004 Mulder claimed that he had grabbed his wife around the neck after she had been verbally abusing and threatening him. He said he "lost it" as a result of this provocation but never intended to kill his wife.
However, Andreas Loubser and Christy Kourtzen, both South Africans who worked with Mr Mulder, told the court that on separate occasions Mr Mulder said to them that he was going to kill his wife. Mr De Waal said in his evidence that Mr Mulder spoke of a plan to "max out" his credit cards and re-mortgage the house in Bangor and return to South Africa with the cash because he was tired of his family.