Woman Survives 4,000-Foot Fall After ‘Parachute Sabotage’

A British army sergeant accused of tampering with his wife’s parachute in a bid to send her plunging to her death was described in court Monday as “unemotional and bewildered” after she fell 4,000 feet and survived. Prosecutors say Emile Cilliers removed several vital pieces of his wife’s parachute during a skydiving jump in 2015, causing both her main and reserve parachutes to fail. His wife, Victoria Cilliers, suffered a broken pelvis, ribs, and vertebrae. Prosecutors say the skydiving sabotage was Cilliers’ second attempt on his wife’s life; he allegedly damaged a gas pipe at the couple’s home a few days earlier in the hopes it would cause an explosion. Cilliers was allegedly hoping to cash in on a $160,000 life insurance policy for his wife’s death after promising to begin a new life with a woman he met on Tinder. He denies all the charges.