25/01/2008

South African Get Life For Murder Of Bangor Woman

A South African man has been jailed for life following a retrial for the murder of his Co. Down wife.

Anton Mulder strangled Colleen Suzanne Mulder after boasting to a friend: “I am going to kill her. In this country it’s easy. Five or six years and I’m still young when I get out.”

Mulder, who is originally from Durban in South Africa, was found guilty yesterday of murdering his wife at their Co. Meath home in December 2004.

Mulder had previously been found guilty of murder after a five-day trial in May 2006, but the verdict was later overturned by the Court of Criminal Appeal, which ordered a retrial after “inappropriate interaction” with the jury by Mrs Mulder’s brother, Mr William Pollock.

Colleen Mulder met her husband in South Africa in the mid 1980s and due to the economic situation made regular trips to Northern Ireland as Mulder sought work.

The marriage deteriorated after Mrs Mulder suffered a miscarriage and suffered depression. The couple’s sons Clinton and Kristopher said that their mother was “scared of him,” and that their father had “destroyed the whole house.”

(DS)


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