Mariëtte Sonjaleen Bosch (1950 – 31 March 2001, later named Mariëtte Wolmarans) was a South African woman who was executed in Botswana on 31 March 2001. Bosch was convicted for the murder of Maria Magdalene "Ria" Wolmarans, both members of the white expatriate community in Gaborone, in June 1996. She was the first white woman to be executed in Botswana, and was the fourth woman to be hanged since the country's independence. Due to these two factors, the murder case received significant attention outside the country and was referred to as "Botswana's White Mischief".
Background
Mariette Bosch was the daughter of an affluent liquor store owner in South Africa, and with her husband Justin had moved to Gaborone, the capital of neighbouring Botswana, due to the latter country's lower crime rate and a bustling economy. The Boschs settled in Phakalane, a neighbourhood in Gaborone that was popular with affluent White South African expatriates and often referred to as "Little Sandton". Mariette became a member of the Gaborone Dutch Reformed Church and entered into high society, becoming friends with Ria Wolmarans and her husband, Marthinus "Tienie" Wolmarans. She had three children.
In 1995, Justin Bosch died in an automobile accident. Shortly afterwards, Mariette Bosch and Tienie Wolmarans began having an affair. The Wolmarans had separated in 1993 but had moved back in together the following year, despite Tienie promising Bosch that he would divorce his wife.
Murder
In June 1996, Bosch travelled to Pietersburg, South Africa, and received her father's pistol from one of her friends. The following day she smuggled the gun into Botswana. Bosch entered the Wolmarans' residence, located two blocks away from her own, by climbing a security wall and shooting Ria Wolmarans twice, hitting her in the stomach and ribs. There were no witnesses to the crime.
Originally, police believed that the murder occurred in the process of a burglary and named no suspects. Bosch told her sister-in-law, Judith Bosch, that she loved Tienie Wolmarans and wished to marry him. Judith, with whom Bosch had an acrimonious relationship, persuaded Bosch to give the murder weapon to her and her husband, saying that she would give it back to the gun's original owner, who was a mutual friend; Mariette gave the gun to Judith's husband. Three months after the killing, Bosch ordered a wedding dress from a designer in Pretoria. Upon discovering the facts about the gun and the dress, Judith took the gun to the police. The police arrested Wolmarans on suspicion that he was involved in the murder, but he was released after one evening and was never charged.
Legal process
Botswana prosecutors said that the murder encompassed "the four Ls of murder—love, loot, lust and loathing." After Mariette Bosch's arrest, Tienie Wolmarans married her in 1997 and supported her. Bosch was originally held in the Botswana Prison Service Lobatse Prison.
Chris McGreal of The Guardian said, "The trial was at times bizarre". A psychologist serving the defense, Dr. Louise Olivier, had also worked as a magazine's "sex doctor." A psychiatrist, who served as the defense expert witness, argued that Bosch did not have the profile of a killer and was not capable of lying. McGreal said that Bosch's daughter cried in court and that her family "were horrified at the circus atmosphere". On 13 December 1999, Justice Isaac Aboagye of the Botswana High Court found Bosch guilty of Wolmarans' murder, and in February 2000 he sentenced her to death.
In January 2001, Bosch appealed. The British barrister Desmond da Silva represented her. A panel of judges from the Commonwealth of Nations served as a court of appeal, and da Silva attempted to convince them that the Botswana government had not revealed, during the trial, that it had granted immunity to a suspect in exchange for testifying against Bosch. On 30 January 2001, the Botswana Appeal Court denied the appeal, ruling that Bosch's explanation of the case was not convincing.
At that stage, the only possibility of Bosch being saved from execution would have been a pardon from Botswana President Festus Mogae. From 1966 until before Bosch's execution, 33 people had been executed in Botswana. On the weekend before Bosch's execution, Mogae said that he was not considering granting clemency.
While awaiting her death sentence, Bosch was imprisoned in the Gaborone Central Prison. The government of South Africa declined to intervene in her case. Up to the end, she insisted that she did not kill Ria Wolmarans, did not show remorse, and accused a third party of being the real culprit.