The police have welcomed the sentencing of two Kraaifontein killers.
Preston Presence, 23, and Marlon Swartz, 22, were each convicted of two counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder. Presence and Swartz were arrested for the murders of two Kraaifontein girls, Nikita Hallie, 16, and Keshia Manual, 17, and the attempted murder of three others.
Presence was sentenced to life in prison while Marlon Swartz, 22, was sentenced to 25 years.
The men heard their fate in the Blue Downs Regional Court on Thursday February 21.
On Thursday July 2 2015, Presence and Swartz walked up to a group of seven people sitting in Petunia Street, Kraaifontein, and started shooting at them.
The two teenagers were fatally shot and three others wounded.
The killers fled the scene but Presence was arrested at the Bellville Velodrome during a high school athletics meeting and Swartz fled Cape Town.
Kraaifontein police spokesman, Captain Hein Hendricks, said Swartz had later been captured in KwaZulu-Natal.
“The convicted killers first appeared in the Blue Downs Regional Court on February 19 2016,” Captain Hendricks said.
Presence had been denied bail and had been in custody since his arrest while Swartz had been released on bail with very strict bail conditions.
Kraaifontein’s station commander, Brigadier Gerda van Niekerk, congratulated the investigating team on a job well done.