When Sergeant Mario Nel kissed his wife Ammarentia goodbye on 3 May last year, she could never have imagined that he would be gunned down and left to die in a pool of blood mere hours later.
While looking down at her ring finger and twisting her wedding band, Ammarentia told a Gqeberha High Court judge of the devastation and trauma Nel's murder had caused his family.
Equally devastated were his colleagues, including his partner, Sergeant Milissa Seaman, who later that day brought home his bag.
"My husband's lunch was still in his bag. His lunch and his jersey," Ammarentia recalled.
She told the court that her husband's killer, Andile Nyoka, has been taunting her and her family ever since his first court appearance by snidely smirking or smiling in their direction.
"In fact, he is doing it right now," Ammarentia said from the dock while testifying in mitigation of sentence.
On Thursday, Judge Fungile Dotwana ruled that Nyoka, 27, attacked Nel from behind at around 09:00 and snatched his service pistol.
As Nel wrestled Nyoka to regain possession of his firearm a gunshot went off and struck him in the head.
He was also found guilty of later boarding a taxi, threatening the driver and passengers with Nel's service pistol, and then using it to engage in a brazen shootout with police.
Ammarentia said when she left the house at 06:30 to fetch some of her daycare children, Nel opened the gate and returned to kiss her goodbye.
She assumed that he then left work like he usually did.
At around 09:30, while Ammarentia was teaching her Grade R class, one of the teachers told her that her mother was urgently trying to get hold of her.
By the time she got to her cell phone in the office, she noticed a flurry of calls and messages from family members.
As she was about to answer her brother-in-law, Luzaan called to enquire about her husband's whereabouts.
She informed him that Nel normally let her know when he gets to work around 09:00 and that he was probably busy.
"I then called my mother who informed me that my husband had been shot. I remember putting the phone down in her ear.
"I started calling my husband, but he did not answer his phone."
When Ammarentia could not get hold of Nel, just got into her car and made her way to the court while continuously trying to reach him on his phone.
She also phoned two of his colleagues but to no avail.
While en route to Motherwell, Ammerentia's brother had gotten hold of her and told her to meet him at home and that he would drive her there.
"When I think about it now, I was in no state to be driving."
Back at the house, Ammarentia's brother confirmed that Nel had been shot, but no further details were known.
"I collapsed into his arms and I started crying."
As the two were en route to Motherwell, one of Nel's Colonel's instructed her to stay away from the court, and she complied.
"By the time we got back home, there were police vehicles and police in front of the house.
"They stood there with their heads buried in their chests."
Inside the house, a Colonel gave her the devastating news that Nel and been shot, and that he died.
"I could not breathe.
"It felt as if my soul left my body. I was numb."
Though the couple did not have any children during their two-year marriage, they spent every alternate weekend with Nel's two sons who live in Gqeberha.
He left behind three sons and a daughter, whom he supported emotionally and financially.
Ammarentia kept up the visitation schedule with his sons, despite Nel's passing.
When State Advocate Dail Andrews asked Nel how her husband's death had affected her personally, she said: "For the first few months I could not eat and I lost an enormous amount of weight.
"Up until today, I rarely sleep."
She also told the court that she and Nel had been inseparable and that the weight of their joint financial responsibility was not her load to bear.
Ammarentia described Nyoka as an arrogant person who has not shown the family an ounce of remorse.
She accused him of taunting her and acting as if he deserved a prize for what he did.
"I don't think that I will ever be able to forgive him.
"He did not just kill Sergeant Mario Nel. He took away my husband, a father of four, his parent's first-born, the elder brother of his younger sibling, and everything that we stood for.
"We are left with only memories because of a person who felt the need to play God and end someone else's life."
Nyoka's legal representative, Advocate Jodene Coertzen of Legal Aid SA, was moved to tears by Ammarentia's testimony.
She tearfully told the court that as a former soldier who served in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), she could sympathise with the "trauma suffered by the deceased's family and his colleagues."
"My empathy goes to them, I know what it's like to lose a colleague."
Andrews asked the court to impose the prescribed sentence of life imprisonment on the murder charge.
He called for a harsher sentence of 20 years instead of the minimum prescribed sentence of 15 years imprisonment for robbery with aggravating circumstances.
Andrews said the fact that Nel was shot in a court of law and order, dressed in full police uniform while executing his duties constitutes aggravating circumstances.
"He has not shown any remorse. Instead, he happily smiles and poses when his picture is taken by the media.
"He seems to be proud of himself for killing a police officer and acts as if he won a Noble Peace Prize or the National Lottery."
Andrews described the statistics about how many police officers are killed in the country as "shocking", adding that Nel was more than just a statistic.
"He was a diligent and hard-working member of the SAPS. A family man.
"Even the prisoners that he used to transport to court from the St Albans prison said he always treated them with respect.
"Sergeant Nel was robbed of the opportunity to live his life to the fullest, to further touch the lives of his children, and to make a meaningful impact on society," he said.
Nyoka will be sentenced on Friday.
