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The man who pleaded guilty to killing and then dismembering his Bellville neighbour was sent for a psychiatric assessment before sentencing and it seems South Africa has another psychopath in the docks.

The State wants Kyle Ruiters declared a dangerous criminal before he is sentenced for murdering and dismembering Lynette Volschenk, who worked as a draughtsman at an engineering firm in Belville.

During an inquiry at the Western Cape High Court on Monday, psychiatrist Stacey Lintnaar testified that if this ‘Seesig killer’ is not declared a dangerous criminal, a long-term or life prison sentence is advised.

The 28-year-old pleaded guilty to the brutal murder in the Western Cape High Court on 9 May this year. Ruiters stabbed 32-year-old Volschenk to death in her upstairs flat in the same block, the Seesig Flats, in Loevenstein, Bellville. He then cut her body up and dumped the parts in bushes around Bellville. Some parts were also found in black bags in the flat.

In his plea statement, Ruiters recounted the chilling details of the heinous crime. He confessed to being a drug addict (he smoked tik and marijuana) who racked up a debt of R30,000 with his dealer. He said he had to hatch a plan to kill and rob someone of their valuable items which he could then sell to settle his debt.

Ruiters, who was convicted on charges of premeditated murder, violating a corpse, and attempting to defeat the administration of justice, was held at Valkenberg Psychiatric Hospital for 30 days of observation, per The Citizen:

“This is after an initial report from the same institution declared that he has ‘definite psychopathic traits’,” said National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) regional spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila.

In Lintnaar’s assessments of him, she found that he met almost all the criteria for the anti-social personality disorder that is found in psychopaths:

He had little regard for the rights of others, and, alarmingly, during the assessment he admitted to stalking another woman when she refused to give him her phone number. He said he filmed her “every move” at the shopping centre where she worked and planned to steal her scooter after she rejected him. He managed to get her phone number by lying to her colleagues about being from a recruiting company, and he faked a package delivery to get into her complex.

Considering this and the fact that his behaviour resulted in the murder of another woman, Lintnaar said the chances of him re-offending are “very high”:

She added that he was “rejected by white women at school”. Combined with him being abandoned by his mother, and his two targets looking similar – “young white female” -, in her opinion, “any contact with a white female might trigger his resentment and anger”.

She noted, too, that he showed signs of “criminal diversity” when he stole from colleagues while he still had a job, who “never suspected him because he was such a nice guy”, he said.

In an earlier psychiatric report, Ruiters shared his fascination with serial killers such as Ted Bundy. He told psychiatrists that he researched the topic extensively and was most fascinated with the Zodiac Killer, who has never been caught.

He also admitted to researching how to dismember bodies and studied the movements of various potential victims before pouncing on Volschenk.

For sentencing purposes, the court held an inquiry on Monday into whether he is dangerous, per News24:

This is invoked in rare cases as a way of protecting society from him if he does not change his ways in prison. If the court agrees to this option, he can only be considered for release after a psychiatric assessment concludes he is rehabilitated and will not offend again, regardless of how much time he has served.

As the presiding Judge Robert Henney pointed out: “In this case, he can’t be released on parole ever. It’s an indeterminate sentence unless he is brought before this court [for a review].”

Henney said courts are loathe to make this declaration as the flip side of an indeterminate sentence is that it could lead to an offender getting out much sooner than a possible life sentence if a psychiatric assessment recommends a release,

Without the death sentence being an option, a life sentence of 25 years before parole is considered the harshest punishment available.

Kyle’s lawyer, Ross McKernan noted – while going through an anti-social personality disorder risk checklist, which assigns weighted scores to life events and circumstances that could lead to the disorder – that it counted against Kyle that by 15, he was using alcohol and drugs, failed grades, bunked, and lied to his teachers about why he had not done his homework.

Lintnaar explained that substance abuse, level of education, failing several times, not being able to hold down a job, and, poor support systems, had to be taken into account in determining whether risk factors in children become “persistent and pervasive” in adulthood and lead to crime.

Overall, she found him remorseless with no sign of guilt over what he had done – which is a bad sign.

The case has been postponed to today, November 15 for the final argument.

[source:news24]