MURDERS IN SA 2008

Virginia Keppler, Beeld Pretoria - Murdered 19-year-old ballerina and Vodacom meerkat Moitia dancer, Esteé van Rensburg, was to have joined her parents at the KKNK in Oudtshoorn on Thursday. Instead, Koos and Linda van Rensburg got the shocking news that she'd been found semi-naked, raped and murdered on their her parents' bed at their Faerie Glen, Pretoria home on Wednesday morning. She had been shot in the head. "My child is dead. She was my baby," said a weeping Van Rensburg. Her last SMS, which she had sent to her parents on Sunday, read: "Di son het vandag uitgekom wat beteking nuwe lewe... JESUS het vandag opgestaan ... Prys di HERE ... Veilig ry vdag. Lief vi julle baja! Mwa". ("The sun came out today which means new life... JESUS rose today... Praise the LORD... Drive safely today. Love you lots! Mwa) Esteé's body was found by Irene Molefe, 50, when she arrived for work. Molefe said that when she arrived at the house, she unlocked the gate and walked around the house. "I was about to unlock the door when I saw that the sliding door was half open." Like a doll "I walked in and shouted: 'Morning, Esteé! I'm here!' "The fridge was standing wide open. "Then I peered into the garage and saw that her car wasn't there. "I started shouting, ' Esteé! Esteé!' "When I looked into her parents' room, I saw her lying on the bed like a doll and there was a pillow over her face." Molefe said she had got a huge fright and ran to the neighbours across the road for help. "I've never seen anything like that," she told Beeld, crying. Nathan Mowatt, 19, the neighbour's son, went to investigate. He said: "I drew the curtains to one side and then I saw it was Esteé who was lying on the bed." Always laughing They immediately phoned the police and his mother phoned Esteé's parents in Oudtshoorn with the news. Nathan said Esteé was an exceptional person. "She always had a bounce in her step, was always laughing and was the happiest person I knew. "I saw her a week ago, but we just waved to one another. "I now wish I had chatted to her a little then," he said. Captain Julia Claassen said that a television, a computer and Esteé's silver Toyota Tazz (registration number NNS 243 GP) had been stolen. Her handbag, cellphone, her mother's jewellery and other valuable items in the house had not been taken. .......AND THIS IS HOW THE SLIMEBALLS GET INTO OUR HOMES Warning from SAPS - always check ID of someone at your gate. The SAPS is sending out a warning about a group claiming to be from the electricity department. They may not have targeted your area (yet) but please be aware of their modus operandi. 1. One of the suspects arrives at the house alone and informs the residents that he is from the Electricity Dept and needs to make an appointment to return in 3 days time in order to fit a cover to the geyser for the purpose of saving electricity. He asks for permission to enter and to be shown the geyser. 2. No identification is shown and three days later the suspect and 3 others, dressed identically - brown pants and yellow t-shirts bearing the word ELECTRICITY DEPT, and carrying toolboxes, arrive. 3. They proceed directly to the geyser and start working. As soon as the occupants relax, they are held up at gunpoint, tied up and the premises are robbed. Please remind everyone living or working on your property (especially domestic workers and children) not to allow any strangers in and please remember to ask anyone "official" for identification and follow up with the relevant department, before allowing them in. ................AND STILL THE MURDERS CONTINUE IN SA...AFRICAN STYLE........ ___ More arrests in Atteridgeville attacks 27 March 2008, 09:16 Related Articles Minister calls for indaba on xenophobia SA success at heart of immigrant stress Resident could only listen as mob burned man Two foreigners burnt to death Nine more people were arrested for the murder of two foreign nationals in Brazaville informal settlement in Atteridgeville, Pretoria police said on Thursday. Spokesperson Constable Patricia Simelane said they were arrested between Wednesday and Thursday, bringing the number of accused to 12. The three people initially arrested would appear in the Atteridgeville magistrate's court on Thursday. The two foreign nationals died when a group burnt their shacks down on Monday night. In the first incident a group went to a shack belonging to a Zimbabwean man, beat him up, left him inside and torched his shack. He was later found dead but his brother managed to escape. A few metres away another person was found burnt beyond recognition in a shack. That shack had occupied a stand where a tuck shop belonging to a Zimbabwean was located._______________

Hotel manager murdered 27 March 2008, 05:58 By Sharika Regchand The manager of the Thistle Hotel in Pietermaritzburg was found murdered at the hotel early on Wednesday. Mark Truter, 37, who lived at the hotel owned by his businessman father, John, was found lying on the floor of his room with his hands and legs tied and a strip of plaster over his mouth. Police spokesperson Henry Budhram said there were no injuries and he appeared to have suffocated. The body was found by cleaning staff. He said Truter had closed the business at midnight and gone to his room. "It has also been established that the keys to the safe... were removed from his person and used to open the safe in the office. An undisclosed amount of money was removed." Truter's brother, Laurence, said the family was shocked. "He was a very nice guy and enjoyed living. They should have just taken the money. There was no need to murder," he said. His sister, Cheryl Graham, said her brother was single. The family had owned the hotel for about 20 years. Is it anger or criminality? 29 March 2008, 10:43 Related Articles Cosatu welcomes Atteridgeville arrests Minister calls for indaba on xenophobia SA success at heart of immigrant stress Resident could only listen as mob burned man Two foreigners burnt to death By Fiona Forde Not for the first time in the past week, Father Kieran Creagh watched the flames of the burning shacks light up the hill on the far side of the Atteridgeville valley on Monday evening. Not so long ago, the 45-year-old clergyman wouldn't have thought twice about running to the scene of such hideous xenophobic crimes. But because of his own near death experience last year, he stayed well clear, paralysed by his own fear of violence. The attacks on the foreigners' homes on Monday night claimed the lives of two Zimbabweans and left untold damage in their wake. Their homes were first set alight, "and it was about half ten or eleven o'clock when the screaming started", he recalls at his own home at the Leratong Hospice in Sausville. "It sends a chill up your spine, knowing people are being abused, being tortured. Your instinct is to help, but I could do nothing. And that's not a good feeling," says Creagh. On Monday night, at the height of the attacks, the Apollo lights went out, Father Creagh, or Kieran as he prefers to be called, remembers. "There were 12 homes on fire, but apart from that, the place was in darkness. People wouldn't have known who was who, or what was going on." On February 28 last year, the Belfast-born Passionist priest came within a whisker of death when nine men broke into his home, beat him badly and shot him before they escaped with a broken CD player and a DVD. "And I know what these people must have been going through. It saddened me, and it sickened me too, actually made me feel nauseous." Sending his staff to Monday's fires was not an option either, he says, as all the vehicles are branded with the Leratong logo "and I didn't want to draw the attention of the gangs over here". A few days earlier, Kieran was visiting a friend in Pretoria when one of his staff phoned to warn him not to return home. "Cars coming into the township were being attacked and he told me to stay away for the night." By the time he returned the following morning, calm had been restored. By evening, the xenophobia was showing its face again. "And so it continued right through to Monday evening, culminating in the loss of life." A friend of his, a Zimbabwean nurse, ran as fast as her two feet would carry her to the Leratong Hospice for shelter. Her husband attempted to make his escape, but thought twice and buried himself, face down, in the grass, where he stayed until the violence subsided. A second man, also Zimbabwean, escaped. A third Zimbabwean was killed. Kieran rented a car and paid a local to go to the shack the following day to collect her belongings, or all that was left of them. The woman is in hiding now, in Mpumalanga, with friends. Just one man has been arrested. "The word on the street is that there were a few hundred involved," Kieran says. For as long as he has been living in the vicinity, Kieran has watched the informal settlements grow and expand, across the valley and up the slopes of the meandering hills in Mushongwe. In recent times, most new settlers tend to hail from foreign parts, mainly Zimbabwe, Zambia and Mozambique. "But people have lived well together, side by side. Atteridgeville is not known for violence." However, the new arrivals, unlike the South Africans, live with the added plight of having to send money home, to support a number of mouths in the neighbouring countries with fewer opportunities than our own. With the best intentions, they crowd out the townships and informal settlements and put heavy demands on already scarce resources, slowing up the all but static service delivery. "If your own lot is not a good one, you can always point your finger at someone else looking for blame," Kieran believes. "When you're angry, reason goes out the window. Xenophobia can be sparked as easy as that." However, he is quick to note that those who perpetrated this week's violent acts are not acting on behalf of the majority. "Most locals are disgusted. These people acted on their own agenda, not on the will of the rest." On Tuesday, local community leaders called a meeting to see how the issue might be addressed. There was an agreement that people would gather to keep the rioting mobs out, should they attempt to vent their anger on the other side of the hill. "But for me, that's just keeping the problem out there - it's keeping it out of this settlement, but confined to another. And that's not an answer." Events of the past week have sent up a signal. "There's anger out there. We would hope it won't flare, but we don't know, and we can't be complacent." The demographics of Mushongwe and many other settlements epitomise a larger political issue that goes well beyond the confines of Atteridgeville. "And it's time for South Africa to help Zimbabwe sort out its problem." This article was originally published on page 8 of The Pretoria News on March Black robbers attack Bryanston couple Black robbers attack Bryanston couple 30/03/2008 http://www.news24.com/News24/South_A...296784,00.html Johannesburg - A woman was shot dead and her husband injured during a robbery at their home in Bryanston, paramedics said. Netcare 911 spokesperson Nick Dollman said the couple were attacked on Friday night. "The husband alleged that the attackers had fired several shots at him in the house, fortunately they missed. "Tragically the same could not be said for his wife, she sustained a gunshot wound to the left side of her chest and she died at the scene," said Dollman. The wife was declared dead at the scene by the paramedics and the husband was treated for a head injury before being transported to a private hospital for further treatment. Gun shop owner killed 31 March 2008, 18:46 A woman who survived being shot by the Stander gang 25 years ago has again been the victim of a violent crime, only this time she wasn't so lucky. Marlene Henn was killed when she and her husband Mike were attacked in their Bryanston home on Friday night. The couple are the owners of the Potshot Gunshop and Academy in Randburg. Gauteng police spokesperson Captain Julia Claassen confirmed that three armed men had overpowered the couple when they arrived home. Marlene was shot in the chest and died on the scene. Mike suffered head injuries. On November 10, 1983, just days after former policemen Andre Stander and Lee McCall sprung Allan Heyl from Zonderwater Prison, the gangsters walked into the gunshop where Marlene was working alone. She saw that one of them had a gun and went for her own firearm in the shop's safe, but before she could fire, she was shot by McCall. The bullet struck Marlene's arm and pierced her lung.