Police initially thought the couple had gone missing but later found Meier sleeping in a limousine — used for the couple's limousine business — at their home. The limo, which was rented out for special occasions, was packed with goods Meier had taken from their home. He explained in a statement before the court that he wanted to sell the goods to a pawn shop the following morning for money to pay his drug dealers. Meanwhile police had found his wife's body wrapped in a duvet under a bed in the couple's house.

Accused has "new information"

Meier, with his waist-length hair in a ponytail, claimed on Thursday that a magistrate had earlier refused him bail, although he had "new information" that his drug suppliers were the actual killers. He said the magistrate refused to look at the facts contained in a statement handed to the court.

Acting Judge Hennie Goosen found that the magistrate did not consider the statement and he referred the matter back to the regional court to reconsider bail. Meier said in the statement that he had a sound marital relationship with his wife. He called her a reputable woman, who had to put up with a lot considering his drug addiction.

Cocaine addiction got out of hand

He said his addiction to cocaine got out of hand a few months before the murder and he booked himself into a rehabilitation centre. Financial pressures, however, forced him back to his habit where "the Nigerians controlled his life."

On April 6 last year (the day of the killing) he and his wife spent quality time together. They even had an "intimate early morning in the bedroom," he said. They later worked in the garden, but around noon he craved drugs and went into town where he bumped into his supplier. "He insisted payment and I told him to back off."

Meier said he was "mild" on cocaine when he came home. He went out later that afternoon and his young son insisted on going along. When he went home later that night, he saw three men running out of his house.

"Your son is next"

"The last one I recognised as Alex Talimo, shouting 'your son is next'." "Although I was tranquilised, I realised something was wrong... Entering the bedroom I was shocked to see the deceased [his wife] covered with blood. "I did not want my son to see his mom in such a terrible state."

Meier said he took the child to the lounge and returned to the bedroom. "She was lifeless. I felt her pulse and there was no beat, nor breath. I knew she was dead. Her whole body was pale as I picked her up. I noticed the back of her skull was badly injured. I saw our spade we earlier used in the garden, lying on the bed." Meier said after his son was asleep in the lounge, he took his wife to the spare room and "gently slid her in the lower part of the bed that formed a box.

"Indirectly responsible for everything

"I knew I was indirectly responsible for everything... when I (earlier in the day) stated I had no intention to pay my drug debts..." Meier said he could not phone the police, because he knew he tampered with the body and other evidence and because he was under the influence of cocaine. "I knew they would arrest me. "I went and smoked cocaine and tried to find a solution to my predicament."

Meier said he decided to go and kill his drug lord. But when he got to the man's flat, he instead indulged in an orgy of cocaine smoking. "All I had in mind was to kill the murderers and to end my life."

He said he later went back home where he took the valuables to flog the following day. It was then that he fell asleep in the limo where police found and arrested him. The trial is set to start in the Pretoria High Court on September 13.

Nigerian Drug Dealers nabbed in Durban, South Africa