Husband's horrifying murder plot exposed after wife survives 4,000ft plunge
It had initially seemed like a tragic accident, both the primary and backup parachutes that experienced skydiver Victoria Cilliers had been relying on that day refused to deploy – but the sinister truth was that the horrifying incident had been an a deliberate attempt at murder.
Speaking on the documentary SkyDive Murder Plot, Rob Camps, secretary of the parachuting club at Nertheravon Airfield in Witfield, described how it appeared almost as though a "bag of washing" had been hurled from the aircraft.
Rob recalled that it was "sickening" to witness as Victoria plummeted for approximately 25 seconds. He had presumed that her descent would prove deadly, and had even seized a body-bag before rushing to the field where she had crashed.
However, what Paul uncovered in the days after the dreadful incident proved that Victoria's sickening plunge had been planned in advance. Victoria Cilliers in the field where she landed (Image: Storyfilms TV)
Victoria was a seasoned skydiver, a qualified accelerated freefall (AFF) instructor with 2,654 jumps under her belt, yet nothing she could have done during that terrifying 25-second descent could have stopped that bone-shattering collision.
But, against all the odds, Victoria survived.
She had sustained serious spinal and internal injuries, along with a fractured pelvis and five broken ribs, but was sufficiently recovered to be questioned by police several days afterwards. Police became interested in Victoria's accident after examining her parachutes revealed that the soft links – crucial components known to experts as "slinks" – appeared to be absent from both parachutes. Accident investigators recorded video footage of the moment they unpacked Victoria's faulty 'chute (Image: PA)
Without these vital parts, leaping from an aircraft at 4,000 feet would virtually guarantee death.
Rob Camps had contacted police after inspecting her parachute and discovering what had occurred. Investigators' suspicions swiftly turned to Emile Cilliers, Victoria's husband and father of her two children.
He had been present with her the day before, when a scheduled parachute jump had been cancelled due to poor weather conditions, and had mysteriously taken her parachute with him into the toilets when one of their children announced she needed the loo. Wiltshire Police's suspicions fell upon Victoria's husband Emile Cilliers (Image: PA)
Analysis of the 38 year old army officer's mobile phone records revealed that he had not only been having an affair with another woman, an Austrian skydiving instructor he'd encountered on Tinder, but had also accumulated substantial debts through his frequent use of prostitutes.
However, the challenge for detectives probing the case was that Victoria couldn't bring herself to believe that the father of her two children would ever wish to murder her. She remained captivated by the charismatic South African even after evidence surfaced that the tampering with Victoria's parachute wasn't Emile's first attempt on her life.
Six days prior to that tragic parachute jump, Victoria had detected a powerful gas odour in her kitchen. Emile hadn't been home, informing his wife he was remaining at the military barracks to ensure an early morning start.
Investigation of the gas pipework entering the property revealed conclusive proof that Emile had interfered with the valve – and that he had been entirely prepared to murder his children alongside his wife.
An examination of his online browsing history demonstrated he had been investigating the availability of wet-nurses to feed their newborn infant before his wife's anticipated "accident." Emile Cilliers also loosened a gas valve in their kitchen in hope of killing his wife and children (Image: PA)
Nevertheless, Victoria struggled to acknowledge the reality, even when police confronted her with the undeniable evidence of her husband's culpability. She eventually consented to give evidence against him, but in a dramatic turn altered her testimony in the witness box, suggesting the possibility that she might somehow have been responsible for the incident.
She gave evidence that she had misled officers during her original interviews, and had overstated the duration he had spent with her parachute: "I made it sound worse than it was because I was humiliated. I wanted him to suffer."
Emile persistently refuted attempting to murder his wife throughout a seven-week hearing at Winchester Crown Court and the jury ultimately delivered a message to the judge declaring they would be unable to reach a decision. With the possibility of a retrial looming, DI Paul Franklin and DC Maddy Hennah found themselves back at square one. As police unravelled his story, police began to see Emile Cilliers as a narcissistic psychopath (Image: Getty Images Europe)
They relentlessly gathered additional evidence, questioning Emile's former wife, Carly Cilliers, who is the mother of two of his elder children. Their investigation revealed that he had also rekindled his romance with her.
DI Franklin observed that Emile's capacity to deceive all the women in his life with such ease was characteristic of a psychopath.
He went on: "He can have a conversation with his wife about picking up the children or a bit of shopping at the same time as arranging to meet someone he knows from Fabswingers for some weekend fun, and ringing someone from Adultwork to see if they are available.
"Three totally separate conversations at the same time, managed in such a way that there was never a wrong phone call to the wrong person. When you see that repeated constantly for years, you see what kind of person he was." (Image: Storyfilms TV)
Even following Victoria's life-threatening plunge, Emile was messaging sex workers from beside her hospital bed and organising encounters with them in the vicinity.
However, Emile's web of deception started to crumble during his retrial and he was convicted of two counts of attempted murder, plus a third charge of recklessly endangering life.
He was handed a minimum 18-year prison term.
Meanwhile – at the very same parachute club where she so narrowly cheated death – Victoria encountered former Royal Marine Simon Goodman and the pair wed in October 2024.
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