WESTERN CAPE. – The Clanwilliam regional court has sentenced Niklaas Meyer to life imprisonment after he was found guilty of attempted murder of his wife, Louisa Meyer. He repeatedly stabbed her on eleven May 2025 at their home on De Lille farm in Clanwilliam.
Eric Ntabazalila, National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson, says the court found he acted with direct intent driven by jealousy and rage. Meyer said he was angry because he suspected Louisa of infidelity and she had hidden her cellphone from him and moreover had not listened to him.
Their son heard screaming, ran in and found his father stabbing his mother, who was lying on the floor, with a knife. His father turned towards him and he ran away to get an object to try to stop the attack. His sister pushed his father away, and he dropped the knife. Louisa sustained life-threatening stab wounds that required sixty stitches. Louisa died of natural causes before the trial.
The children, Owen Farmer and Estericia Meyer, the state's key witnesses, were initially unwilling to testify against their father, but agreed after regional court prosecutor Mark Taylor reminded them of their mother's wish, expressed on 27 January 2026, that the prosecution should continue.
Meyer claimed Louisa had attacked him and that he had disarmed her. According to the defence he acted in self-defence. The court rejected his version and found that Louisa had not attacked him and that the wounds on his arm were self-inflicted. Meyer had previous convictions for assault and breach of protection orders, with Louisa as the complainant in all of them.
The court also declared him unfit to possess a firearm and issued a search and seizure warrant for his firearm licence certificates, licences, authorisations, permits, firearms and ammunition.
This article is an automatic English translation of a Nuusflits article originally published in Afrikaans. Read the Afrikaans original.
