The De Zalze Murders: The Story Behind the Brutal Axe Attack

By Julian Jansen

The Van Bredas were the perfect family. Wealthy, successful and well-liked. In a luxury estate just outside Stellenbosch they lived what seemed like a dream life. But everything changed overnight. The gruesome murders of Martin, his wife Teresa and their son Rudi shocked South Africa. Julian Jansen, one of the first reporters on the scene, immediately realised that the case was going to place exceptional demands on the police. He was also deeply shaken by the events. As relatives and friends one by one started talking to Jansen, a picture emerged of parents at their wits' end with their difficult 'loner' child and his drug problem. Could it be that the Van Bredas' own son had wielded the axe? From the moment the news broke, Rapport journalist Julian Jansen has followed the case closely as a reporter for the Sunday press grappling with the human side of this tragedy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tafelberg
• Release date: Nov 6, 2017
• ISBN: 9780624082156

Julian Jansen

JULIAN JANSEN is oorspronklik van Lusikisiki in die Oos-Kaap en het in die Strand in die Wes-Kaap grootgeword. Hy is 'n oudonderwyser en het agtien jaar lank Aardrykskunde en Geskiedenis aan twee Helderbergse skole onderrig. Daar het hy 'n positiewe verandering in "stout" leerlinge se gesindheid bewerkstellig deur hulle op berguitstappies liggaamlik en geestelik uit te daag. Die afgelope tien jaar is hy 'n verslaggewer in die Sondagkoerant Rapport se Kaapstadse kantoor - met 'n kort onderbreking in 2009 toe hy die Wes-Kaapse LUR vir Gemeenskapsveiligheid se woordvoerder en toespraakskrywer was. In 2010 kry hy eervolle vermelding in die Mondi Shanduka-pryse se afdeling vir harde nuus. Dit was vir sy deel in 'n span wat berig het oor die moord op die Britse bruid Anni Hindocha en die aanklagte teen haar man, Shrien Dewani. In 2013 ontvang hy Rapport se Spesiale Redakteursprys vir sy beriggewing. Hy fokus meestal op misdaadberiggewing, maar geniet dit ook om stories te skryf oor die triomf van die menslike gees oor teëspoed asook oor gewone mense wat ongewone dinge doen.

Book preview

The De Zalze Murders

THE STORY BEHIND THE BRUTAL AXE ATTACK

Julian Jansen

Tafelberg

‘Every boy, in his journey to become a man, takes an arrow in the center of his heart, in the place of his strength. Because the wound is rarely discussed and even more rarely healed, every man carries a wound. And the wound is nearly always given by his father.’

– John Eldredge in Wild at Heart (2001)

Dedicated to my late father, Donald

1

The day dawns red

IN AN UPSTAIRS BEDROOM , the attacker has gone berserk. Ruthlessly, his forceful axe blows strike the head of the dark-haired young man. He is strong and agile and swiftly overpowers his victim, like a predator its prey. His quarry defends himself with his hands, desperately trying to ward off the blows. He fights to keep death at bay. But death looms over him.

More blows follow. And yet more. He grabs at his attacker. Slashing through the air, the axe cuts his left hand. The little finger hangs from a piece of skin. Blood spurts down his neck, over his bare torso, and down onto his boxer shorts.

He starts stumbling. Breath rattling, he falls face down. His body comes to rest on his bed, limp.

A grey-haired man rushes into the bedroom. The nightmare from which he woke with a start was no dream, but the cries of death. He stops, shocked, at the bed on which his older son lies, and it is there the killer strikes, raining down axe blows – mainly to the back of the older man’s head. Death comes quickly.

His wife and teenage daughter, terror-stricken, are fleeing down the passage towards the stairs leading to the ground floor. They have to pass the room where the screams have now fallen quiet.

The attacker blocks their path. The mother rushes straight at him. She is hit on the nose. Then he aims at her head with the axe. She tries to hold him off with her right hand, and the weapon strikes her thumb and upper head. Her head snaps forward. Now he has the back of her skull in his sights. Hacking blows hit it with enormous violence. She falls down.

And does not get up again.

The axe wounds the blonde girl on the right side of her head. She collapses next to her mother, her jugular vein partially severed.

***

The summer sun is rising behind the Jonkershoek mountains as domestic workers walk to work on the De Zalze golf estate outside Stellenbosch shortly after seven o’clock. They can’t believe their eyes: in front of a double-storey house in Goske Street stands a bloodied, half-naked young man. Dressed only in grey sleeping pants and short white socks, he is preoccupied with his cellphone. The curious audience grows as the young man with the dark-blond hair talks on the phone, but no one can make out anything of the conversation.

At 7:12 am he calls the 107 emergency number. Janine Philander, an operator at the public emergency communication centre in Cape Town, answers. She puts the call through to the ambulance services at Tygerberg Hospital in Parow. A female operator speaks to the caller and Philander¹:

OPERATOR: Ambulance services. Good morning.

PHILANDER: Morning. Janine, 107. I’m speaking to?

OPERATOR: You’re speaking to Christi, Janine.

PHILANDER: Christi, I have a caller on the line. They’re on some winelands there in Stellenbosch, but the address is a bit tricky … Uhm … three adults. One teenage girl. One adult is on the line. His name is Henri.

OPERATOR: Henri?

PHILANDER: Yes. They were assaulted now with an axe. No suspects on scene. He says … I’m going to conference you. Want you to hear this. Hold. Henri?

HENRI: Yes.

PHILANDER: I’ve got ambulance services on the line. So, he gave me a few different addresses. The one he’s gonna go with, he says, is 10 Allemann Street. In Stellenbosch.

HENRI: Yeah. If you go to 10 Allemann Street. Are you sending one there?

OPERATOR: OK, tell me, what is your street name?

HENRI: My street name is Goske.

OPERATOR: OK, die straat waar die incident is? [OK, the street where the incident is?]

HENRI: Yes … it. Yes.

OPERATOR: OK, wat’s die straat se naam? Goske. [What’s the name of the street? Goske.]

HENRI: Goske. Goske Street.

OPERATOR: Goske. G-O-S-K-E.

HENRI: Yes, Goske, in Stellenbosch.

OPERATOR: Is it a street name? OK. Let’s just check this. Hold for me.

OPERATOR TO PHILANDER: Kry jy daai straat? [Do you find that street?]

PHILANDER: No, I get … a Bothasig in Milnerton.

HENRI: If you just, 10 Allemann is just past my street. If you send an ambulance.

OPERATOR: Is it Allemone or Allemann?

HENRI: Allemann.

OPERATOR: OK, spel daai vir my, ek wil gou hier opskryf. [OK, spell that for me. I just want to write it down.]

HENRI: A-double L-E-M-A-double N.

OPERATOR: A-double N.

HENRI: Alle-mann with two n’s.

OPERATOR: I’m not picking it up.

PHILANDER: Let me just write it here on my thingy.

OPERATOR: Is it number 10, neh? Al-le-mann.

HENRI: Do you get any Allemann Street? You can send anybody and I can meet him there in the road.

OPERATOR: Allemann Street. Not Anemone. It’s Allemann?

HENRI: Yah.

OPERATOR: In which area of Stellenbosch is it?

HENRI: Hi. It’s in De Zalze.

OPERATOR: Pardon?

PHILANDER: De Zalze.

HENRI: Called De Zalze.

OPERATOR: Watter area in Stellenbosch is dit? [What area in Stellenbosch is this?]

PHILANDER: De Zalze. D-E-Z-A-L-T-S-E.

HENRI: No, D-E-Z-A-L-Z-E. [Philander spells along with Henri.]

OPERATOR: Zalze. OK, golf estate.

HENRI: It’s a golf estate.

OPERATOR: OK, OK, what kind of injuries is this?

HENRI: Uhm … My… My… My… family and me have been … were attacked … by a guy with an axe.

OPERATOR: With an axe … unconscious, huh?

PHILANDER: They’re unconscious, he says.

HENRI: Yes … and bleeding from the head. [He gives a nervous giggle.]

OPERATOR: OK … die adres [the address]. OK. Just want to get the right thing here. Hou aan. [Hold on.]

[No conversation for 23 seconds.]

OPERATOR: OK. Hold on. You say it’s number 10 Allemann Street. De Zalze golf estate in Stellenbosch?

HENRI: Yeah.

OPERATOR: OK, thank you, sir, we’ll send a … just keep your cell open in case they get lost.

PHILANDER: OK.

HENRI: OK. Call on my mobile phone. Call on my mobile phone. I will be out in the street … meet the ambulance there.

OPERATOR: OK then. OK.

HENRI: How, how long will you …?

OPERATOR: It won’t be long … We’ll send an ambulance out as soon as possible. OK then.

PHILANDER: OK.

OPERATOR: Thank you, sir. Goodbye.

PHILANDER: Bye-bye.

***

Just before half past seven a police vehicle turns hurriedly into the narrow Goske Street. A neighbour had already called the 10111 emergency number when he realised something strange was happening. The vehicle stops in front of the white double-storey house with the two young trees. Sergeant Adrian Kleynhans and Constable Marius Jonkers jump out, removing their service pistols from their holsters as they walk. The sergeant scans the surroundings, and sniffs the air, as if he smells danger. At the white garage door he jiggles the handle to see if it is locked. Then he looks though a chink in the curtains of the window to the right of the front door. The room inside is dark.

The next moment he bumps into Henri, who has a cellphone in his hand. Sergeant Kleynhans is even more on the alert when he sees the blood on the young man’s body and sleeping pants. He asks him who he is, what has happened, what is wrong? Henri just mumbles something and, rather casually, points to the top floor.

‘The problem is upstairs,’ he says softly, and continues fiddling with his cellphone.

The police officer orders Henri to wait outside on the stoep. Then he enters the house, his guard up.

Inside, it is silent as the grave. To the right in the tiled entrance hall is the staircase, with elegant black railings. The officer notices a dark-red wet spot on the shiny beige tiles. It seems to come from the first floor.

He walks up the stairs. Cautiously. A sour, metallic smell hangs in the air. The officer expects the worst. The scene on the top floor stops him dead in his tracks: the bodies of two scantily clad women lie in the passage near the bedroom door, next to a bookcase. The older woman is dressed in beige panties and a navy-blue vest. She has gaping head wounds. Her face is pallid.

The young girl’s long blonde hair is bloodstained. She looks as if she is asleep.

Sergeant Kleynhans tightens his grip on his firearm; someone may still be hiding in the house.

He has shared grisly crime scenes and videos on social media to see the reaction of his friends. But the gruesome scene facing him now is real and immediate, not just a film. He experiences it through all his senses.

Carefully, he enters the nearest bedroom, his ears cocked for the slightest hint of danger. A grey-haired man is slumped over the top end of a single bed in a kneeling position, his legs on the floor. His body and multicoloured striped boxers are bloodstained. On the floor a mutilated dark-haired man, wearing blue striped shorts, lies facedown.

As he walks past the women in the passage, one of the girl’s legs twitches slightly; a macabre sight, almost like a corpse suddenly coming to life. She is alive! The sergeant phones his shift leader at once.

***

At the Stellenbosch detective branch in Adam Tas Avenue, Colonel Deon Beneke is leading the daily parade. The detective branch is housed in an old red-roofed double-storey building, a stone’s throw from Papegaaiberg. For years, a plantation of pine trees covered the slopes. Now the hill is bare, the trees all felled.

His diary is open at Tuesday, 27 January 2015. He and the detectives are discussing the day’s work programme and the progress made with dockets. Later they will decide together which cases should enjoy priority.

The colonel’s police cellphone interrupts the meeting. He grabs it. The caller is Constable Zuko Matho, the night shift’s service leader. By eight o’clock Matho would usually have collected all the dockets, submitted a report on the night’s events, and ended his shift. Then he’d drive the short distance to his home in Kayamandi, have a light breakfast and go to bed.

But today he was summoned to the De Zalze golf estate, just outside Stellenbosch. There was already a commotion at the main entrance when he arrived; a security patrol had reported to the centre at the gate that there was serious trouble in Goske Street.

‘Pipe down!’ Beneke calls out rather irritably to the chatting detectives in their chairs before he can continue his phone conversation. His expression is grim. Hunched forward in his seat, he listens attentively to Constable Matho’s report. His right eyebrow rises slightly as he starts jotting down details in his notebook in front of him. Noting the surprised look on his face, the detectives itch to know what he is being told.

He ends the call. ‘There’ve been three murders,’ he announces, and briefly gives them the details. They stare at their colonel in shock. His pumpkin-coloured shirt fits rather tightly over his stomach. Some of his colleagues anticipate that, one day, the buttons will pop off.

‘Do things like this happen in Stellenbosch?’ Beneke later wonders aloud. Since starting his work as head of detectives in the vibrant student town, he hasn’t had to deal with much violent crime.

A captain next to him remarks drily: ‘Lately it’s really only been the balaclava gang that terrorises the area.’

‘Yes, but even they don’t kill; just tie up their victims,’ a colleague observes.

Some of the other detectives nod in agreement.

Beneke lifts an eyebrow abstractedly. He assigns the task of leading the axe-murder investigation to Matho. The constable is therefore in charge of the crime scene. From now on, no one may enter the scene without his permission, and without being accompanied by him.

The colonel dismisses the meeting but asks some members of the Serious and Violent Crimes Unit to stay behind. Among them are sergeants Stephen Adams, Marlon Appollis and Denver Alexander.

The day-shift members should go along as well, Beneke adds. He himself will also drive to the scene after he has summoned the teams from the Forensic Science Laboratory in Plattekloof in Parow outside Cape Town, and the Local Criminal Record Centres of Paarl and Worcester.

He allocates the tasks, then walks out of the main building towards the row of parked cars and gets into his vehicle. Thoughts are churning through his mind: a murder inside the high-security estate is sensational. But three murders – and with an axe at that – are unprecedented.

The drive to De Zalze usually takes about five minutes. This morning though, with the bustling traffic and the students who have started returning to university, he needs an extra dose of patience.

When the police officers and the various units arrive at 12 Goske Street, Detective Constable Matho accompanies each individually along the designated route to the horrific crime scene on the top floor.

***

In the Naspers Centre in Heerengracht, Cape Town, the reporters in Rapport and Die Burger’s combined newsroom on the sixth floor have been at work since early morning as usual. Our Tuesday news lists have to be finalised for the editorial conference at nine o’clock. As January is ‘the silly season’, the list of newsworthy stories is rather slim. I carry a mug of coffee to my desk, ready to start the day. Someone is mixing instant porridge in a bowl. Here and there fingers are already rattling over keyboards.

Outside the 26-storey building the morning sunlight falls on the slopes of Table Mountain. The cableway is a pencil line against the dark crags and pale-blue sky. Heavy traffic trundles into the city. Ships lie at anchor in the harbour, where the reflections of the sunlight glitter on the sea’s ripples. The Mother City is gearing up for the working day.

The next moment, my cellphone beeps. I glance at the message: ‘Family at De Zalze hacked to death with axe. Child survives.’ Like a newspaper headline. A ‘What the fuck!’ escapes my lips. I put down my coffee mug and call the person who sent the message. The details are still patchy, the sender informs me. In quick succession, other reporters in the room receive the shocking news. Via SMS, e-mail, phone call or on WhatsApp.

Disbelief and shock mingle with questions. A family? An axe? Three dead? Some colleagues start speculating that it may be the handiwork of the notorious balaclava gang that has been terrorising the Kuils River-Stellenbosch region with burglaries in the past weeks. ‘Scumbags!’ a reporter exclaims. ‘It must have 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.

***

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