A man sent a chilling text message to his mistress shorty after trying to kill his wife while skydiving.
Experienced skydiver Victoria Cilliers was undertaking a parachute jump on Easter Sunday 2015, but it went horribly wrong.
The jump had been a gift from her husband Emile Cilliers, though it later came to light that it was all part of a calculated plan.
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Victoria had been going through a difficult period with Emile, but she saw the gift as a bit of a peace offering.
Skydivers typically have a regular parachute and a backup parachute in case the first one doesn't open.
But on this particular disastrous occasion, both the standard parachute and the backup parachute failed to open during Victoria's jump.
This led to her falling 4,000 feet before hitting the ground.
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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.
But by some miracle, Victoria survived the horrific fall.
Instead, she broke her spine, pelvis and fractured some of her ribs and was airlifted to hospital.
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It emerged that while Emile was sat by Victoria's hospital bed during her recovery, he sent a chilling text message to a woman he was having an affair with.
Emile wrote: "I can’t imagine anything like that happening to you, all I can think about is you."
For her part, the woman had been led to believe that Emile and Victoria were separated.
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Victoria had assumed that the failures in her parachute had been the result of a terrible accident or oversight, but soon made a chilling discovery.
Police told her that evidence suggested her parachute had been tampered with.
The prime suspect in the case was Emile, who had previously tried to kill Victoria and their children by leaving the gas on. Thankfully, 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 his girlfriend.
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After more investigations were carried out by officials, Emile was convicted of two counts of attempted murder and given a life sentence with a minimum term of 18 years behind bars.
The terrifying story is being told in the new Channel 4 docudrama The Fall: Skydive Murder Plot.
Topics: Crime
Callum Jones