Former SA man tried to kill his wife by sabotaging her parachute

Emile Cilliers (38), a South African-born army sergeant at the Royal Army Physical Training Corps, has been found guilty in a UK court of trying to kill his wife Victoria (41) by tampering with the parachute she was about to use in a skydive he had arranged for her as “a treat”.

The jump took place at Netheravon, Wiltshire on Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015. Cilliers removed parts of the parachute in the airfield toilet beforehand, the court found.

This attempt to murder her was preceded by another just one week earlier when he caused a gas fitting to leak in the hope of causing an explosion at the family home in Amesbury while he was at work.

The explosion never materialised and, though seriously injured, his wife landed in a soft, ploughed field and miraculously survived her husband’s second attempt to kill her too.

The court heard Cilliers, who was married before and has six children, was in contact with a number of prostitutes and having affairs with two other women at the time.

He had upped his insurance premiums and hoped to clear his debts with the payout from his wife’s death, to start a new life with one of the women.

Victoria Cilliers is an experienced parachute instructor and she told the court that when she jumped and deployed her parachute she immediately knew there were issues.

“I was shaking and absolutely terrified. I just wanted to be back down on the ground.

“I did not really understand what was happening,” she said.

When she decided to cut to the back-up “straight away … as the reserve deployed, I could feel something was not right,” she told the court.

“I was spinning, spinning really fast. I know when I hit the ground there was a metallic bang. Then everything went black.”

The court found Cilliers guilty on two counts of attempted murder and one of damaging a gas fitting and recklessly endangering life.

He will be sentenced on June 15.