She was stabbed 38 times: Court rejects repeat killer’s bid for a lighter sentence

Jerome Windvogel waited with a knife as his former partner headed to work. The High Court has now rejected his bid to reduce his life sentence. The Western Cape High Court has dismissed Jerome Windvogel’s appeal against his life sentence for murdering his former partner. On Monday, 9 November, the court found that his guilty plea and personal circumstances did not justify a lighter sentence. Windvogel armed himself with a knife, waited where he knew the woman would catch transport to work and pursued her when she tried to escape. He stabbed her 38 times in an attack witnessed by her mother and sister. The court also weighed his previous conviction for stabbing another intimate partner – an offence for which he had already served time in prison. Acting Judge Michelle Adams dismissed the appeal on Monday, 9 November. The ruling leaves in place the life sentence imposed by the Bonnievale Regional Court in January 2025. “Previous imprisonment did not prevent him from again resorting to knife violence against an intimate partner, this time with fatal consequences,” Adams said. He waited for her on her way to work The judgment says the couple’s relationship had ended by the time of the killing in 2023. They shared a child who was about 11 months old. At about 5am, Windvogel went to the place where he knew his former partner would get transport to work. When she refused to engage with him and fled towards her mother’s home, he chased and restrained her. Mom tried to help He continued stabbing her after she fell, sitting on top of her as he attacked her upper body. When her mother tried to intervene, he threatened to stab her too. She was forced to step back. The court said Windvogel had prepared for the encounter and had repeated opportunities to stop. “The deceased was entitled to end the relationship and continue her ordinary life in safety,” Adams said. Guilty plea counted, but remorse was not established Windvogel argued that the regional court had placed too much weight on the brutality of the murder and had not adequately considered his circumstances together. In his guilty plea, Windvogel admitted that he had armed himself and waited for the woman. He later gave the probation officer a different account, portraying their encounter as coincidental. “By presenting that officer with an account which minimised his culpability, the appellant failed to demonstrate the candour and acknowledgement of wrongdoing upon which a finding of genuine remorse must rest,” Adams said. Previous violence weighed heavily The court attached particular importance to Windvogel’s 2019 conviction for stabbing another intimate partner with whom he also had a child. He received a six-year prison sentence, with two years suspended. He completed an anger-management programme during that imprisonment but testified that it had not helped him. The court agreed he could potentially change, but decided keeping the public safe from his repeated violence was more important. “Life imprisonment does not require a finding that the offender is incapable of rehabilitation,” Adams said. The judges also considered the interests of Windvogel’s three children, alongside the harm suffered by the deceased’s children and the grandmother who took on additional responsibilities after the killing. The court decided that the punishment was fair, even under those circumstances. Questions over earlier release remain unanswered Separately, Adams raised concern about the timeline of Windvogel’s release from his previous prison sentence. Serving the effective four-year term from February 2019 would have taken him to approximately February 2023, but the record appeared to suggest he was already outside prison in 2020. The court could not establish when or why he had been released and made no finding that his release was unlawful. Adams stressed that the uncertainty played no part in the decision to dismiss the appeal.