Marlene Lehnberg

Initially, Lehnberg had hoped that she and Susanna van der Linde could come to some sort of arrangement concerning Christiaan, but this meeting was to change all of those ideas. Not only did Susanna van der Linde tell Lehnberg that she would never give her husband a divorce because of the children, she also added, she didn’t mind playing second fiddle as long as Lehnberg didn't mind either. It was obvious to Lehnberg that Susanna van der Linde was prepared to do anything to keep her husband.

Lehnberg ended her life in October 2015, five days before her 60th birthday. She had suffered from osteoporosis for years and had also been diagnosed with breast cancer. She could no longer take the severe pain she was in and committed suicide alone at home, and in relative obscurity. Choegoe died in a car accident in 1992 on the N7 near Nuwerus in the Western Cape.

The third member of the tragic triangle, Christiaan van der Linde, died a lonely man in 1983. After the trial, he moved to Krugersdorp so that he could visit his wife's grave on her family's farm in the Magaliesberg mountains every day. He expressed remorse of ever having met Marlene Lehnberg.

The trial of Lehnberg and Choegoe began at the Cape Town Supreme Court on 5 March 1975. The trial drew hundreds of spectators who fought for seats in the packed courtroom. After a hearing which lasted seven days, during which the State called more than 30 witnesses, the Judge, Justice Diemont and his two assessors, A.J. van Niekerk and F. van Zyl Smith, deliberated overnight and returned verdicts of guilty for both accused. The court found no extenuating circumstances and Lehnberg and Choegoe were sentenced to death.

Two months later, the case was re-opened on appeal. In July 1975, the death sentences were set aside. Lehnberg was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment and Choegoe to 15 years. Choegoe, however, was released in June 1986 and became an evangelical preacher, while Lehnberg was paroled in December of the same year.

By July 1974, Lehnberg was becoming desperate and started talking about leaving Cape Town. Christiaan van der Linde persuaded her not to, but by September she had finally tired of the situation and decided to confront Susanna. Lehnberg called and explained that she and Christiaan were very much in love and were seeing each other every night. She wanted to know what Susanna van der Linde intended doing, but Susanna van der Linde hung up on her. A few weeks later, Lehnberg telephoned again. This time she made an appointment to go and see her. They met in Bellville early in October.

In October 1974 Lehnberg handed in her notice at the hospital and told van der Linde that she was going to leave Cape Town. On 24 October Lehnberg collected Choegoe from his home in Retreat and drove him to Bellville in her car. He was armed with a hammer which was to be used to kill Susanna van der Linde. Lehnberg dropped him off in the vicinity of Boston and sped away. Shortly afterward Choegoe was spotted by Susanna van der Linde. She was alarmed because she had seen him in the area on more than one occasion. She telephoned the Bellville Police Station and Choegoe was picked up by the police about two blocks from her house. At the police station he was beaten and warned not to return to the area.

Around 8.30 a.m. on the morning of Monday 4 November 1974 Lehnberg arrived at Choegoe's home. She said that her car was packed and she was on her way to Johannesburg, but before she left she needed Choegoe to come with her to van der Linde's house. He claimed in a statement that it wasn't until she handed him the Llama pistol on the way to Bellville that he realized that she wasn't just going to say goodbye.

Van der Linde and Lehnberg struck up a father-daughter type relationship which grew closer as the months passed. In April 1973, a year after they first met, the couple began an affair.

Throughout the remainder of 1973, Lehnberg and Van der Linde continued to meet in secret at Rondebosch Common and Paarden Eiland. Then, early in 1974, their intimacy stopped. Van der Linde suspected that they were being watched because his wife was receiving anonymous telephone calls.

In February 1972, Lehnberg began her first job as a clerical assistant/receptionist at the Red Cross Children's Hospital in Rondebosch, Cape Town. She started work in the orthopaedic workshop alongside Christiaan van der Linde. Van der Linde was the workshop's chief technician and Lehnberg, a bright, intelligent and attractive 16-year-old, was apparently drawn to him from the start.

Marlene Lehnberg (15 October 1955 – 7 October 2015) was a South African murderer more commonly known as The Scissor Murderess. She was 18 years old in 1974 when she and hired killer Marthinus Choegoe stabbed Susanna Magdalena van der Linde, the wife of Lehnberg’s 47-year-old lover Christiaan van der Linde, to death with a pair of scissors. At 19 she was then the youngest woman to be convicted of murder in South Africa. Both Lehnberg and Marthinus Choegoe received the death penalty, but this was later set aside and she served 11 years of her 20-year sentence in Pollsmoor Prison outside Cape Town.