The De Zalze Murders. Julian Jansen
been more than one person – to have managed to massacre almost an entire family, to overpower them in their sleep. There must have been a terrible fight, resistance … An axe?’
‘Get as much information as possible and keep a close watch on the daily papers during the week,’ our news editor, Inge Kühne, instructs from the Sunday paper Rapport’s offices in Johannesburg. We send text messages to all our police contacts. The internet is combed. The search terms: ‘axe’ and ‘De Zalze’. The traps are set for any incoming news on this breaking story.
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In Goske Street, the area around No. 12 has become a hive of activity. In front of the house the police and forensic teams in their light-blue overalls and gloves are hard at work.
Warrant Officer Nicky Steyn also arrives at the scene. He and his colleagues were working on an investigation involving the balaclava gang when they were called to De Zalze, and immediately rushed to the Goske Street house. Perhaps he can pick up the trail of the gang on the estate, Steyn hopes. If they are, in fact, the perpetrators.
Two ambulances, with the paramedics Victor Isaacs, Axel Mouton, Marco Jones and Christiaan Koegelenberg, are already at the scene. After the call from the emergency centre in Parow, they wove their way through the heavy morning traffic from Stellenbosch’s ambulance station in Merriman Road to the estate with screaming sirens.
Detective Constable Matho conducts the paramedics upstairs and looks on as they kneel next to each victim in turn, checking for signs of life. Three times they just shake their heads. No pulse, no breathing.
Squatting down next to the unconscious girl, a paramedic checks her pulse to make sure her blood is circulating. One checks for an obstruction in her airway, then another makes sure she is breathing comfortably. She has a gaping wound to her head; her jugular vein seems to be severed. The paramedics staunch the bleeding and bandage the wound. They lift the girl carefully onto a stretcher that has been hurriedly brought in. She groans. They need to get her to Mediclinic Stellenbosch as soon as possible.
The paramedics’ boots leave a bloody trail from the top floor to the ambulance.
Outside the house, the task of attending to the large bruise on Henri’s forehead falls to Victor Isaacs. There are also two long, thin marks across his chest. He has a superficial blueish stab wound to the left side of his body. No blood flowing from it. There are three thin scratches to his left arm. The paramedic shines his torch into the young man’s glazed eyes to check how the pupils react to light. The pupils contract abnormally, which surprises Isaacs and his colleagues as it may be an indication of an unknown substance in Henri’s bloodstream.
Isaacs is already haunted by the scene, and particularly the horrific wounds sustained by the victims. As he packs away his equipment and peels off his gloves, he is overcome by sadness. It would take the whole team a long time to get over what they had just seen.
Members of the police’s forensic unit place a bloodstained axe and a kitchen knife, apparently part of a set, in transparent plastic bags, and label them. The items will be tested for DNA as well as for so-called ‘touch DNA’ (DNA that is transferred via skin cells deposited on an object whenever it is handled or touched).
The axe looked brand-new, according to those who caught a glimpse of it.
Meanwhile, reporters, photographers and a television team have dashed to De Zalze. At the main entrance, they are stopped firmly by security personnel. Other entry plans have to be devised to reach Goske Street. Two reporters try an alternative route via the adjacent Kleine Zalze wine estate, from which they discover an access route to De Zalze, and manage to get near the house in Goske Street.
From behind the cordoned-off area they send out tweets, take photos of police officers and the forensic team, and talk to some of the neighbours. The bystanders’ eyes are fixed on the double-storey house, shock and incredulity on many faces.
Among them is Felicity Louis, a domestic worker on the estate. Earlier, she saw Henri standing in front of the house. His blue eyes were dark, almost vacant, she recounts. ‘His eyes had such a funny look, as if they were looking far, far into the distance. He just stood there.’ Apparently urine was running down one leg, into his sock. ‘He even waved at the neighbours.’
In the back seat of a parked police vehicle sits the family’s domestic worker, severely traumatised. She arrived at the house early in the morning – even before the first police officers turned up – and went upstairs, where she saw the bodies and ran out of the house screaming hysterically. It is all still too much for her. Every now and again she sobs quietly. A policeman brings her a new handkerchief and a glass of water.
Martin Locke, a neighbour of the family and well-known SABC TV sports commentator from the 1980s, watches from beyond the cordoned-off area with his blonde fiancée, Jeanette. Today is his 75th birthday, and this afternoon he and Jeanette are getting married. He calls out to Henri, who is standing to one side, but the young man just stares ahead. Later Martin walks off and watches from further away as the police and members of the forensic unit remove black plastic containers from a vehicle and carry them into the house. Another neighbour stands next to him. Now and then they exchange hushed comments.
A resident who lives lower down in Goske Street confides from behind a hand that in the early hours some of the neighbours heard sounds of a ‘row’ coming from the house.
Later Henri’s girlfriend, Bianca van der Westhuizen, arrives after having seen all his calls on her cellphone. She is accompanied by Alex Boshoff, a close friend of Henri. Bianca is inconsolable and Henri puts his arm around her. He is crying unashamedly. Alex comforts his friend and cries along with him.
Also standing in front of the murder house is André du Toit, Henri’s uncle on his mother’s side. The estate management summoned him urgently, but reportedly Du Toit wanted to know why he was needed before taking on the rush-hour traffic from the northern suburbs of Cape Town. On hearing the news, he sped to Stellenbosch in his double-cab bakkie.
His brother-in-law had given André’s name and contact number to the management the year before, in case of an emergency. Little did he know what the nature of that emergency would be.
Meanwhile, more reporters and photographers who have caught wind of the route to the house via Kleine Zalze arrive in Goske Street and congregate behind the police’s crime-scene tape. At this stage the media do not know exactly where in the house the bodies are lying. Apart from the fact that the Van Breda family lives here, information about the attack and the victims is still extremely scarce. Those who do obtain any details share them in whispers or jot then down quickly in a notebook.
On Facebook, the profiles of the daughter, Marli, and her brother Rudi show that the family previously lived in Perth and Brisbane, Australia. The digital rumour mill has started grinding, and Twitter is abuzz about the murders.
Forensic teams in their protective suits and gloves, escorted by a patient Constable Matho, still move in and out of the house. It looks like a scene from a thriller.
Photographers struggle to get a frontal shot of the murder house. The cordoned-off area stretches up to three houses from No. 12. The police and emergency vehicles, as well as the two trees in front of the house, obscure the view even more. Photographers have to be content with side-view shots taken from the neighbouring houses. Some obtain permission to take photos from the neighbours’ balconies but still can’t get a good view. The police officers keep a stern eye on the media. No one dares move beyond the yellow-and-blue tapes.
As the hours go by, the bigger picture starts taking shape: the 54-year-old Martin van Breda was an affluent businessman. His wife was the 55-year-old Teresa, a homemaker. Rudi, their eldest child, was a 22-year-old student at the University of Melbourne. Their other son is 20-year-old Henri. Their daughter Marli, aged 16, attends a private school outside Somerset West. The family is originally from Pretoria. The upmarket suburb of Waterkloof Heights.
Most of their relatives still live in Gauteng and Mpumalanga. Among them are Teresa and André’s 90-year-old mother, Rika du Toit, who lives in a retirement home in Kempton Park. She suffers from Alzheimer’s disease