Ex-wife was Kotze’s ‘narcissistic supply’
|Published
18/4/2013 Johan Kotze at his trial in the Pretoria High Court. Picture: Etienne 18/4/2013 Johan Kotze at his trial in the Pretoria High Court. Picture: Etienne
Pretoria - Ina Bonnette was the “narcissistic supply” to “Modimolle monster” Johan Kotze, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday.
Jan van Rooyen, for one of Kotze's co-accused Andries Sithole, asked clinical psychologist Tertia Spangenberg why Kotze did not react more drastically when he found three men attacking her - according to his testimony.
She said when Kotze saw Bonnette with another man on New Year's Eve 2011 his “narcissistic supply” was cut off. He had idolised her prior to that day.
“The night of the 31st he lost Ina Bonnette as his narcissistic supply.”
Spangenberg explained that a narcissist, which she found Kotze was, would surround himself with people feeding this narcissism. Bonnette was this source for Kotze.
This was why, after Kotze saw her with someone else, he did not act more drastically when he saw his three co-accused attacking his then wife on January 3, 2012, she said..
According to Kotze's testimony, he found the men in a spare bedroom with Bonnette and he asked them not to hurt her.
Van Rooyen asked if a narcissist would not be more likely to revert to violence.
“I wouldn't definitely say it would go over to violence,” Spangenberg said.
Kotze is accused of orchestrating the gang-rape of Bonnette and of murdering his stepson Conrad, 19, in his rented home in Modimolle on January 3, 2012.
At the time Bonnette was still married to Kotze, but lived in her own flat.
Kotze's co-accused, Sithole, Pieta Mohlane, and Frans Mphaka are accused of kidnapping, assaulting, repeatedly raping, and attempting to murder Bonnette that day.
Earlier on Tuesday the State questioned Spangenberg's report on Kotze, according to which his actions were irrational.
Prosecutor Retha Meintjes put it to Spangenberg that Kotze's actions - giving orders to his co-accused, walking to a closet to get tools to mutilate Bonnette's genitals, pulling the trigger, and reloading the gun - appeared to be rational.
“These are complex actions,” Meintjes said.
Spangenberg agreed, based on the State's version of events.
“Given the State's evidence it may be rational.”
She added, however, that to actually give these orders was not rational.
In her report, Spangenberg found Kotze was not accountable for his actions.
“I am of the opinion that Mr Kotze was not accountable for the alleged actions of which he stands accused,” she said last week.
“It is my opinion that the combination of Mr Kotze's narcissistic personality disorder, superimposed on traumatic psychological injuries, combined with an unmanaged, long-standing, major depression and untreated and unresolved acute stress disorder, resulted in a state of psychological dissociation during his alleged criminal acts.” - Sapa