Victoria Cilliers thought she had met the love of her life when Army Sergeant Emile Cilliers came on to the scene.
Her future husband swept her off her feet in 2009 and they tied the knot in South Africa's Cape Town two years later, with children April and Ben, quickly following suit. But while Army physiotherapist Victoria and her partner seemed to be enjoying an idyllic family life, everything was not what it seemed.
For callous Emile, 44, was living a double existence, cheating on his wife with multiple women while racking up thousands of pounds worth of debt. And with cash for his playboy lifestyle running out he made a chilling decision - to try and kill Victoria, 48, who went onto brand him a 'sad, sick individual'.
The wannabe murderer gifted his devoted partner a skydive before removing crucial pieces of equipment known as slinks, which connects the parachute harness to a reserve chute, ahead of her fall. His experienced wife had completed more than 2,500 jumps when she took the plunge at Netheravon airfield in Wiltshire on Easter Sunday in 2015 but she quickly realised something was up.
Cilliers was jailed for life and ordered to serve a minimum of 18 years when his evil plot was uncovered (PA)With her parachute deliberately sabotaged Victoria, then 47, fell 4,000 ft to the ground. Airfield ground staff were so convinced she had died they took a body bag to collect her but she survived after landing in a soft, recently ploughed field. Victoria was left with a broken shin, shattered pelvis and fractured ribs.
Man who 'killed 4 students' was 'creepy' regular at brewery and 'harassed women'
Emile had now failed twice in his bid to kill his wife for a £120,000 insurance payout. A week before, he had opened the gas valve in the kitchen of their family home at Amesbury, Wilts, before leaving the house - all while Victoria, their toddler daughter and newborn son were asleep upstairs. Smelling gas the next morning, she asked her husband if he had altered the valve, joking: 'Are you trying to bump me off?'
Looking back at their relationship, there were signs something was seriously amiss. But Emile's cruel manipulation tactics left Victoria trapped. He borrowed £20,000 off his wife and stole £6,000 from her bank account. Bailiffs had even knocked at her door when she was pregnant. "Why are you worried? They can't do anything," he had told her.
But Victoria, a coercive control survivor, was concerned and she tried to secure the financial future of her children by cutting her husband out of his will in 2014. She had no idea about the true extent of his duplicity though - Emile pretended to be on work trips so he could holiday with his Tinder girlfriend Stefanie Goller and he would regularly sleep at the Army barracks after complaining of his 45-minute commute.
Victoria in the field where she landed, surviving because it was softly ploughed (Storyfilms TV)With her husband becoming increasingly cold and distant, distraught Victoria sent him many messages with one reading: 'I feel like a failure as a wife'. "It was an addiction," she told new Channel 4 series The Fall: Skydive Murder Plot. "I wanted to go back because I felt great for the first 12 to 18 months. All I could think about was doing my best to get our relationship back to that. He made me feel I was The One. I didn't want to burst that bubble.
"I missed what we had at times, when he could be this dynamic, amazing, loving husband. I wanted my original husband back."
Emile had other ideas and after failing to kill his wife twice, he used her credit card when she was in intensive care after her fall, while exchanging tens of thousands of messages with girlfriend Stefanie. Visiting his wife as she recuperated, he seemed unusually keen to get doctors to sign insurance paperwork.
"He didn't even say he loved me," she told the police. "He was there counting up my fractures. You get £1,000 for each break and he was there totting them up."
But Victoria took a long time to believe her husband could have been responsible for her near-death plunge. And she chose not to give evidence against him when he went on trial for attempted murder out of fear of him, saying: "I was careful not to give answers that would directly incriminate Emile. I was aware I'd have to live with the outcome.
MyAnna Buring plays Victoria Cilliers in Channel 4's new retelling of the story (Storyfilms TV)"To this day I'm apprehensive talking about it because he could watch this. My heart rate's gone up thinking what his reaction could be."
The murder plotter was eventually found guilty of two counts of attempted murder in 2018 and jailed for life, with a minimum of 18 years inside. Incredibly, he continued to protest his innocence to his wife from behind bars, bombarding her with letters and phone calls.
Husband and wife enjoy Xmas dinner days before she's charged with his murder
"He knew how to manipulate me right to the core," said Victoria. "His sort of desolation at being in that situation, the tears, the anguish, just reaching out to me saying I'm the only one sticking by him."
Despite her ex's coercive control, the physiotherapist found the strength to divorce him. "He let me say goodbye to my children and was going to bring them up knowing what he'd done," she said. "I don't understand how you could do that."
Watch The Fall: Skydive Murder Plot at 9pm on Channel 4. All episodes are streaming now.
Read more similar news:
Comments:
comments powered by Disqus
