Emile Cilliers Tried to Kill His Skydiving Wife at Least Two Times — Thankfully He Never Succeeded

Skydiving is terrifying for so many obvious reasons and a few that some people might not think about. While it's to understand the allure of floating peacefully above the earth's ground, seemingly daring gravity to come for you, one might fail to consider exactly how this is possible. A parachute hardly seems like enough when it comes to keeping a person from falling to their death, and yet it is. At least it usually is.

In April 2015, an experienced skydiver with 2,654 jumps to her name was adding another to the tally when her parachute malfunctioned, per The Guardian. Victoria Cilliers plunged to the ground but narrowly escaped death.

It was later revealed that her parachute had been tampered with and the person responsible was her husband. Where is Emile Cilliers now? Here's what we know.

In June 2018, more than three years after Victoria survived a fall that should have killed her, Emile was sentenced to life in prison, reported The Guardian. The motive for the 38-year-old's attempt on his wife's life was his desire to carry on with a woman he was having an affair with.

While sentencing Emile, Justice Sweeney said, "Your offending was extremely serious with your two attempts to murder your wife. They were planned and carried out in cold blood for your own selfish purposes."

The first attempt occurred a week before the skydiving incident, when Emile tampered with a gas fitting at the couple’s home in Amesbury, Wiltshire. Senior investigator DI Paul Franklin told the outlet, "From the outset, Emile Cilliers showed no remorse for what he had done. He lied all the way through two trials, but in the end justice won out with the guilty verdicts and now a long prison sentence."

Victoria refused to believe her husband was trying to kill her and said she intended to stay married to him. In an interview on ITV, Victoria said she was in a state of shock and was holding herself together for her children.

"I’m the sole carer for them," she said. "I can’t be angry, bitter, really emotional. I need to keep an even keel for them."

The day of Victoria's near-fatal jump came after almost a year of not stepping into a plane due to the birth of her second child. Emile had arranged everything as part of a post-birth gift and brought both their newborn and 3-year-old to the hangar in order to watch.

He was the one who snagged Victoria's parachute from the store and immediately brought it into the bathroom with him. Later he claimed this was because he didn't want to leave it unattended while bringing their older child to the bathroom.

Mark Bayada, chief instructor and boss of the Army Parachute Association, said Emile's explanation made no sense. Everyone left their parachute unattended and furthermore, it would be incredibly cumbersome to bring both the pack and a child into the restroom. The weather wasn't looking great so it was decided they would jump the next day.

Instead of returning the parachute to the store, as everyone else did, Emile stashed it in Victoria's locker.

When the weather was still not cooperating the next morning, they opted to do a "hop and pop" in the afternoon. This involved jumping from a lower altitude and opening the parachute almost immediately. Victoria jumped from 4,000 feet and hit the ground, which was mercifully soft due to a recent plowing.

When Bayada reached her, he saw that the lines on one side of her parachute were in knots. He soon realized "the soft links, or slinks, that connect the harness to the parachute, were absent."

Bayada carefully inspected the parachute and could find no mechanical issue for the malfunction, stating it had been looked at "16 times by 10 different advanced packers over its lifetime, most recently two months before Easter Sunday, and each time, the slinks were there," per The Guardian.

When police finally questioned Emile, they discovered that he was having multiple affairs and was deeply in debt. He had also stolen from Victoria in order to pay off some of these debts.

His story gets far more sinister.

Emile was regularly paying for sex while also telling lies to women all over the world. Police said he had all the markers of a psychopath and despite all of the overwhelming evidence against him, Victoria still had trouble believing what he did.

In April 2024 she went on the British talk show Loose Women where she told her story again. She had a completely different opinion of Emile by this time, and has since moved on. "It's taken a few years but I'm coming out the other side."