Couple attacked in game reserve

Durban - A woman was killed and her husband critically injured in an attack at their home on a game reserve in Cramond, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Sunday.

A police spokesperson said an unknown number of people gained access to the Croeser couple's house in Msinsi game reserve at around 02:30 on Saturday and attacked them with knives.

The gang stabbed the man Morne Croeser, 34, in the stomach before they attacked his wife, Erica, 34, and stabbed her in numerous parts of her body.

She later died from her injuries.

The news report confirms that no property was taken from the couple's home during the attack.
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Hat Tip: Jenny

Retired Journalist and Wife slain at their home in KwaZulu Natal

The bodies of a former Daily Dispatch journalist and his wife were discovered in their home in Pinetown on Friday afternoon, KwaZulu-Natal police said.

They were identified as journalists Graham Lizamore, 62, and his wife Kate, in her fifties, who had both formerly worked for the Daily Dispatch and who have recently moved to KwaZulu-Natal.

A police spokesman stated that “The couple were found partially decomposed. The woman’s head was covered in a plastic bag and the man’s ankles and wrist were tied,”

The bodies were discovered by a relative, who visited the house, found the door open and the couple dead inside..

Police confirmed there were no signs of the couple having been robbed and that the motive was unknown.

New source

17 year old murder victim mutilated

Anika Smit

A father arrived home from work on Wednesday to discover the body of his teenage daughter, naked and with her hands hacked off.

That morning, Johan Smit had said goodbye to his only child, 17-year-old Anika, before he left their home in the north of Pretoria for work.

When he got home she was dead and had presumably been raped. Her hands were cut off between the elbow and wrist and were missing.

"When I saw the dining room chairs were overturned, I knew something was wrong," said Smith, 54, from Theresapark, as he fought back his tears.

"I called her, but she didn't answer."

Body in bedroom

Moments later, Smit discovered his daughter's body in her bedroom.

Nothing was stolen.

Police spokesperson William Mahlaole said a post-mortem will confirm the cause of Anika's death and whether she was raped or indecently assaulted.

Anika, who lives with her father, was alone at the home on Wednesday. She had stayed home from school due to an ear infection.

Smit arrived home after work at about 16:00 and saw the outside gate and security gate standing open with their locks missing. Anika's scooter stood at the front door.

When he went into the house, he saw the dining room table had been moved and the chairs were overturned. When he called his daughter and she didn't answer, he went to her room.

"She was lying on the ground, naked. Both her hands were gone, they'd been cut off. They must have taken them."


Full report here

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From Dina

NOTE: Typically the report does not say so, but the only reason I can think of for taking body parts from the victim, and that is for use in muti medicine.

Update- more detail on the latest Pretoria killings

Yet another elderly couple have been brutally murdered in the city, bringing to six the number of pensioners killed in Pretoria over the past month.

The bodies of Theuns Venter - who celebrated his 85th birthday last week - and his wife Suzie, 83, were discovered by their grandson when he returned from his night shift as a security guard on Thursday morning.

Police are also investigating the possibility that the woman might have been raped. 'snip'

Although the couple were very security-aware, the front gate, security gate of the front door, the front door and the back door were open. It did not appear that the doors and gates had been forced open.

Seeing that his grandparents' 1984 model minibus was missing, Engelbrecht ran into the house.

He found his grandfather in the living room. "He was lying on his stomach and his hands and feet were tied with electrical cables believed to have been cut from appliances in the house. We suspect he was hit over the head with a blunt object," Olivier said.

The grandmother was lying in the passage. She was not tied up. It is believed she was strangled with a piece of cloth that was found nearby. 'snip'

Full report

Elderly Couple found Dead

An elderly Pretoria couple were found dead in their home on Thursday morning, paramedics said.

Netcare 911 spokesperson Chris Botha said they were called to a house in Mayville to treat a person who had collapsed.

"When we got there the poor paramedics got the shock of their lives," he said.

The man, in his 80s, was found face-down in the lounge with his arms and legs tied up, and was dead.

His wife, also in her 80s, was found dead in the passage.

Report

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Dina

Update - Kgomo murder: 'suspect was a sangoma'

Five suspects, including a 14-year-old boy,appeared in the Soshanguve Magistrate's Court near Pretoria (Gauteng province) on Tuesday in connection with the murder of 10-year-old Masego Kgomo. who's mutilated body was found hidden in a dense clump of bushes near her Soshanguve home on Friday night.

Pathologists on Monday conducted an autopsy on Masego to establish how and when she was killed. It is believed that tests were also conducted to determine whether she had been sexually assaulted and mutilated.

Reports said at least one of the five suspects was a sangoma, apparently involved in the use of body parts for muti.

News source

Another (white Afrikaans) pensioner meets brutal death at home

A second Pretoria pensioner in less than a week has met a violent death at the hands of thugs.

Katrina Hendrika van den Berg, 65, was found murdered in her Daspoort home, apparently killed by a man who was carrying out maintenance work on her property.

Her death comes days after Kitty Botha, 83, was slain in her Lyttelton home, which was set alight by robbers who killed her without taking anything.

Van den Berg's badly bruised and battered body was discovered in her lounge yesterday by her husband, Jan, 56, after neighbours were unable to raise her on the phone or by calling her name outside her Herman Street property.

Unable to reach his wife on her cellphone, Van den Berg phoned neighbours and asked them to go and see if they could see his frail wife in the garden.

When they called him back and said they could not see her, he raced home.

Unable to unlock the gate and seeing the kitchen security door standing open, Van den Berg scaled the garden wall.

He walked through his ransacked home and found his wife's body sprawled in the lounge, a kitchen dishcloth clasped tightly in her hand.

It is believed she was washing the morning dishes when she was attacked, apparently by a man assigned to do repairs to the roof of their home.

As police searched the house for clues, visibly distraught family members gathered at a neighbour's home.

"I can't believe it, I can't believe they have killed her," said a family friend.

The woman, who broke down in tears and had to be led away by a trauma counsellor, said Van den Berg had been extremely kind and caring.

"She never said a bad word about anyone. She had so much time for people and was very loving towards everyone."

Van den Berg's stepson, who asked not to be named, said the family were devastated.

"We are heartsore. We don't know what to do. It is like a bad dream. I keep on thinking we are going to wake up, but in the end we are not," he said.

According to the police only Mrs. Van den Berg's cellphone had been stolen in the attack.*

Continue reading here

* Note: The theft of cellphones, which frequently occurs with these killings is used by the authorities to claim that the killings are motivated by robbery even though far more valuable items, such as jewelry and computer equipment are often left untouched. A more likely suggestion is that the phones are taken to prevent victims or those who find them calling for help or alerting the police before the assailants have got away.

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Contributed by Dina

Elderly white woman killed - nothing stolen

The murder of an elderly Centurion, Pretoria woman who was tied up, gagged and strangled and left in her burning house has left a community reeling.

The gang who invaded her house fled empty-handed after setting her home alight, in an apparent attempt to conceal the crime or destroy evidence.

Catherina "Kitty" Botha, 83, who lived alone for the past 27 years, was found dead in the passage of her Lyttelton home late on Friday night by police, who had been called to the scene by hysterical neighbours.

'No arrests have been made and the motive for the attack is unknown'

Neighbours were alerted to the fire when the windows of Botha's Selborne Avenue home began exploding in the heat of the fire.

Trying desperately to douse the flames with hosepipes, neighbours watched in horror and despair as the flames engulfed a bedroom before spreading rapidly through the roof.

Attempts by several to rescue Botha, who many thought was trapped by the flames, proved fruitless when they were forced back by the heat of the fire.

Botha's body was discovered tied up, her hands bound behind her back, close to her daschund, Moo-Moo, when a Lyttelton policeman, who was on patrol, spotted the fire and ran into the house when he heard that she was still inside the building.

The heat from the flames and smoke, however, forced the officer to retreat. Family and neighbours on Saturday gathered outside the blackened house, which was cordoned off by yellow police crime scene tape.

'At this stage no one is sure of what happened or why the woman was killed'

Botha's grandson, Ryan Dekenah, who described his grandmother as an "incredibly" strong woman who loved her community, said the family was devastated.

"We cannot understand it. These guys did not take anything. They left jewellery, money and all her electrical appliances, including the TV and the CD player. It does not make any sense," he said.

Dekenah, whose grandmother helped raise him after his mother died when he was young, said they had received numerous messages of support and condemnation from the community. He described his grandmother as the most interesting person he had ever met.

"Granny Kitty, who was born in Oudtshoorn, gave a lot of love to the people in the community and was always reaching out to help and had her community at heart," he said, adding that his grandmother's close companion, Moo-Moo, was found dead under a couch where he had suffocated.

Police Sergeant Lynnette Erasmus confirmed the murder and said Botha was found tied up, face-down in a passage next to a bedroom where the fire was believed to have been started.

"At this stage no one is sure of what happened or why the woman was killed," she said, adding that initial investigations showed that although the house had been ransacked, nothing had been stolen in the attack.

Continue reading here

Ryan Dekenah shows Bible verses and messages of love adorning the wall of his grandmother's house

A further news artile regarding this killing can be read here