AN Arboretum widow sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering her engineer husband, last Tuesday applied for bail, pending an appeal against her conviction.
Thenjiwa Ignatia Griffiths (31) appeared in the Pietermaritzburg High Court, where Advocate Shane Matthews argued that the evidence against his client was circumstantial and that an appeal could succeed.
The body of Allan Lewis Griffiths (60) was found near Colenso in January 2006. Thenjiwa later claimed his death was the result of a hijacking.
State Advocate Dorian Paver, however, proved she arranged the hit on her husband with accomplices posing as hitchhikers, who the couple offered a lift to.
They were travelling back to Richards Bay from Johannesburg at the time.
Judge R Seegobin found that she fabricated the hijacking and was a cold and calculated killer who milked her elderly husband for money and disposed of him once the money ran out.
Advocate Matthews on Tuesday argued that she was a first time offender, did not have a passport and was not a flight risk.
State Advocate Paver strongly disagreed and called the bail offer of R3 000 laughable in the light of the heavy sentence.
According to evidence in the trial, Allan met Thenjiwa at a Tuzi Gazi Waterfront nightclub in 2005 and paid her R1 300 per night until the morning they were married.
Within a week after the marriage, she moved out of his bedroom.
Allan shortly after the wedding instructed a local attorney to obtain a family violence interdict against her, saying she assaulted him, took his money and car, inhibited his freedom and prevented him from contacting his family.
Before his murder, he was also advised by his attorney that she would inherit half his estate as they were married in community of property.
Griffiths wanted his entire estate to go to his three children.
Judgement has been reserved.
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