Woman survived horrific skydiving fall and mysterious gas leak only to find husband was trying to kill her
The skydive had been a gift from her husband Emile Cilliers
A woman made a horrifying discovery after surviving a malfunctioning parachute on a skydiving jump.
Experienced skydiver Victoria Cilliers was undertaking a parachute jump on Easter Sunday 2015.
The jump had been a gift from her husband Emile Cilliers.
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Victoria had been going through a difficult period with her husband after catching him several lies, though he had denied all of them.
Despite that, Victoria had seen the gift of a parachute jump as a peace offering and a way for them to move forward.
However, it turned out to be anything but.
Skydivers have both a regular parachute and a backup parachute in case the first one doesn't open.
But on this occasion, things went horribly wrong as both the standard parachute and the backup parachute failed to open during the jump.
As a result, Victoria fell 4,000 feet before hitting the ground.
Her fall was witnessed by people on the ground, and they were left so convinced that she had been killed that they brought a body bag to the scene.
When they arrived they found that Victoria had sustained life threatening injuries including a broken pelvis.
But by some miracle, she had survived the fall.
Victoria assumed that the failures in her parachute had been the result of a terrible accident or oversight, but soon made a chilling discovery.
While she was recovering from her injuries the police visited her and explained that evidence suggested that her parachute had been tampered with.
The prime suspect in the case was Emile, who had previously tried to kill Victoria and the children they had together by leaving the gas on.
Fortunately Victoria smelled the leak and they were able to survive.
He had attempted to kill Victoria in order to cash in on a life insurance policy, and planned to use the money to start a new life with girlfriend.
For her part, his girlfriend had been led to believe that he and Victoria were separated.
Victoria became suspicious of Emile's behavior, which became increasingly concerning.
This included disappearing for long periods, Victoria discovering emails from a sex club on the family computer, and one of Victoria's friends saying that he had sent inappropriate messages to her 16-year-old daughter.
In the end, Emile was convicted of two counts of attempted murder and given a life sentence with a minimum term of 18 years in prison.
The story of Emile's attempt to kill Victoria later became the subject of a 2018 ITV documentary entitled The Parachute Murder Plot. Victoria also released a memoir, I Survived, detailing her story in 2020.
Kit Roberts