It was business as usual in the Johannesburg office of Woolf Joel on that fateful day of 14 March 1898. With him was a Mr Strange as well as an individual who went under the name of Franz Ludwig Kurt von Weltheim.
An argument broke out between the three men and shots were fired. Joel was shot in his chair and slumped forward dead onto his desk, after dropping his revolver onto the floor.
The two survivors offered no resistance to their arrest by the police and subsequently appeared in court, both pleading not guilty to a charge of murder.
It caused a sensation overseas and the incident was covered by the New York Times as well as the New Zealand Herald, among others.
At the trial there were many conflicting versions of what actually happened, but
