The De Zalze Murders. Julian Jansen
in the suburb of Jamestown behind the centre.
‘One afternoon I ran into him at the traffic lights. He asked me if I could go and get him some dagga. What struck me was that he always looked as if he wasn’t quite all there, in a trance, almost as if he wanted to say: “Go on, hit me.”’
Soon it is rumoured that Henri had received treatment in a private rehabilitation centre. The family refuses to comment on this allegation. Eventually it is reported that in 2014 he did in fact spend some time in the Tijger Clinic in Loevenstein, Bellville, an exclusive mental-health treatment facility for conditions such as drug and alcohol addiction, schizophrenia, and anxiety and psychotic disorders. Henri was, like all the other patients there, assisted by a team of experts. At a cost of up to R3 000 per day.
Was there any truth to the rumours that Henri used dagga and tik? Tik users tend to suffer from, inter alia, insomnia, a lack of appetite and poor personal hygiene. Among the effects of the drug are paranoia, hallucinations, mood disturbances and irritability. Would these symptoms perhaps be recorded in Henri’s particulars at the centre?
The unsettling story of the 20-year-old’s life was indeed starting to take shape.
Only a full two years after the De Zalze axe murders would a relation divulge: ‘Henri was suspended by the University of Melbourne because of his drug taking.’ And: ‘Rudi, too, experimented with drugs, but it wasn’t so serious. He was able to stop.’
‘The family had difficulties trying to get Henri into a university in South Africa afterwards – because of his suspension,’ the relative recounted.
‘Martin took his family away from here to escape from the crime. Then he took them to a country where people set little store by religion, where they – how does one put it again? – are not “kerkvas” [attached to the church].’
***
Detective Constable Matho and his investigating team return Henri to the crime scene at his home in Goske Street more than once. He has to show them exactly how everything happened according to his witness statement: where he was standing when he first saw the intruder; where each of his family members was at that point; where the first family member was attacked; where he himself was attacked and knocked unconscious.
The constable makes notes in his notebook and diary. Members of the unit that analyses murder scenes are also present. They carefully record Henri’s version of the chronological order of movements and events on their charts.
What the young man tells the officers here may later be presented in court. His account could be compared with, among others, the blood-spatter patterns at the scene, and the blood on his boxer shorts. Were he to be arrested, his version of events would be crucial.
Henri explains how an intruder first attacked his brother in the bedroom they shared. A glass door leads from the room onto a tiny balcony with black railings that overlooks the street.
He was in the en-suite bathroom, he claims. As he emerged, he saw an unknown man attacking his brother. His father came running down the passage and rushed to Rudi’s defence, but the axe-wielding intruder attacked Martin as well. Shortly afterwards his mother and sister were attacked in the passage as they tried to escape.
According to him, at some point he threw the axe at the attacker. It hit the wall, where it left a visible mark. He was knocked unconscious when he fell on the stairs. When he regained consciousness, the attacker was gone. He then called the 107 emergency number.
Seemingly, Henri struggled to recall the exact aftermath of the murders; Alex Boshoff told the media that, on the morning of the killings, his best friend said his family had been attacked by ‘two or three men’.
According to Alex, a student at Stellenbosch University, Henri often visited him at his university residence Helderberg. They socialised regularly and spent a lot of time with each other. (Martin van Breda and Alex’s father were business partners at Curro Holdings, among others. The two families were on visiting terms and sometimes went fishing, diving or paragliding together.) Alex called Henri a ‘genius’ who was very good at mathematics.
Other family friends observed that Henri’s idleness occasionally got him down, given the absence of the pressure and routine of a university’s academic programme. The house made him feel hemmed in, maybe claustrophobic. So, he’d drive to town in one of the family’s cars, or walk to the nearby Stellenbosch Square centre or along the R44 to the Spar shop in Paradyskloof, to buy cigarettes.
***
At his uncle André du Toit’s home in the suburb of Welgelegen in Parow, Henri is reportedly depressed, lethargic and considerably thinner. He keeps such a low profile that the residents of the quiet neighbourhood are at first unaware that he is living there.
The Du Toits’ domestic worker, Aysha Louw, recounted later in a telephonic interview that she and Henri were sometimes alone at home. He generally kept to his room. ‘He didn’t come out of there when there were guests either. Henri sometimes sat on his own outside at the swimming pool, smoking. Those strong cigarettes. He would also pour himself a drink at the bar and take it to his room.’
She was rather wary of him in light of all the gossip and his possible involvement in the murders. ‘I never let him stand behind me. Later he would usually drive off on his own in a BMW and stay away for long periods.’
***
Almost three months after the murders, the world sees the first images of Henri since the time of the tragedy. Photos taken by a freelance photographer from a sand dune on a Sunday morning shortly before Easter show him walking along the beach at Bloubergstrand with two black dogs with his uncle André du Toit and an unidentified female cousin. The smaller dog is Marli’s Sasha, which she brought back to South Africa from Australia. Oscar, the labrador, belongs to André.
Henri is barefoot, in shorts and a tracksuit top. He is fond of comic-strip logos on his clothes. That day it was Superman’s turn.
Friends said afterwards that André and his nephew often sat next to the ocean. They barely spoke: just sat on the sand, each wrapped in his own thoughts, gazing out over the water. Then the young man might light a cigarette, and slowly expel the blue smoke.
A magazine also publishes photos of Henri talking to a man with a donkey cart in front of his uncle’s home. The man claimed that he had sold drugs to the Van Breda boy.
Henri also pays occasional visits to relatives in Gauteng. He has few friends in South Africa, and mainly visits cousins on his mother’s side of the family. On photos that the Du Toits share on social media, the lean young man stands for the most part with what seems like a kind of smirk on his face. He appears relaxed, as if he does not have a care in the world.
In time the romance between Henri and Bianca van der Westhuizen fizzles out. After the tragedy the couple still saw each other occasionally, friends said, but eventually the contact between them dwindled down to texts or WhatsApp messages. Bianca was reputedly sent overseas for a while to get over everything.
The face of the handsome dark-blond youngster gradually becomes more known to the public. People sometimes stare at him in the street. Others take photos of him or whisper that the boy who survived the axe murders is in the vicinity. Some said afterwards that it seemed as if he couldn’t care less that he was recognised. ‘He was in a world of his own. He was anonymous, like many others in the street or restaurant.’
Owing to the constant media focus on his uncle André’s house, Henri books into a guesthouse with a colourful garden where he stays for two weeks. He tells his hosts that he comes from Johannesburg and studies at Stellenbosch University. And that his parents live in Australia.
The image of Henri that unfolds in the media is of a quiet person, someone often on his computer, occasionally swimming in the pool, smoking a Camel cigarette or sipping on a glass of wine or whisky in the solitude of his room. Alone with his thoughts.
***
Seven months after the murders, Teresa’s sister Narita du Toit pours out her heart in an interview: Henri is not