CAPE TOWN - A Free State game farmer and diamond miner was this week sentenced to three life terms behind bars for the murders of three young men in 2014, police said.
In a statement, police said the high court in Virginia sentenced Johan Pieter Sonnenberg, 62, for the murders of brothers Michael Grant, 20, and Jerome Grant, 28, and their friend Riaan Ruiters, 23.
The three were reported missing in February 2014. Police later received information that they were last seen in Sonnenberg's company and after obtaining a search warrant, conducted a search at his Diamante game farm.
"During the search a foul smell was detected and National Forensic Services were contacted in Pretoria to help in exhumation of the bodies in the shallow graves," police said.
"The then 58-year-old game farm owner Johan Pieter Sonnenberg, was arrested for the murder of the three men. During the search at his house, police also found different types of ammunition."