Dad prays next to dead daughter

2008-05-15 10:01

Magdel Fourie

Johannesburg - He rushed to hospital with his five-year-old daughter Danielle, praying that the bullet wound to her head would be superficial, not knowing that she was already lying dead next to him in the car.

This was the testimony of Diederick Esterhuizen after a robber shot and killed his daughter on the lap of her mother, Anél. The Esterhuizen family and family friend Ferdi Kleynhans went on a fishing expedition at the Riebeeck Lake in Randfontein on December 20 2006.

Esterhuizen said he had never before taken his children, Danielle and Andrico, 3, on his and Kleynhans's weekly fishing trips.

He agreed to take Danielle after the little girl begged her mother, saying "You never let me go with daddy".

Shortly after 20:00 the whole family and Kleynhans arrived at the lake and the fishing lines were cast.

'I want to stay with daddy'

Danielle complained that she was cold and Esterhuizen suggested that she and her mother go sit in the car. But his blond-haired daughter wouldn't leave.

"I want to stay outside with my daddy," she said and climbed onto her mother's lap. Esterhuizen suggested they go home. "No daddy, it's nice here," said Danielle.

The next moment Esterhuizen heard breaking glass and four men came walking across the parking area. One broke away from the rest, pulled out a pistol and started shooting at them.

"I will never forget the cocky and arrogant way in which he did that. My wife screamed that our child had been shot. When I looked at Danielle, there was only blood".

He grabbed her, put her in the bakkie and rushed to hospital, praying all the while. Hospital staff took Danielle from his arms. Kleynhans, an experienced hunter, testified how he took his own 9mm pistol and started shooting at the armed man. The attacker shot back.

"The man stumbled back, fell, shot through his legs and then ran away".

Kleynhans was wounded in the shoulder and thigh.

The case continues.

- Beeld