'Please don't rape me'
2008-06-09 08:51
Virginia Keppler
Pretoria - While her husband lay dying next to her, a sobbing Pretoria social worker begged three armed robbers not to rape her.
That was after they'd wanted to know if there were condoms in the house.
The robbers touched her indecently her while her husband was suffocating due to the clothing shoved into his mouth.
"I cried and begged them not to rape me. They told me to shut up," said Suzette Uys-Joubert, 38, who is a social worker in the SAPS.
She and her husband Koos, 35, were attacked in their home at about 04:00 after the robbers gained entry to the house through a window.
Husband suffocated
"I woke up when somebody switched on the light. One of the robbers was holding a gun to my head.
Koos suffocated in the attack.
He was a mechanic.
Suzette said the robbers terrorised them for about an hour.
The attackers also walked through the house laughing and consuming the couple's biltong, food, milk and cooldrink.
"I woke with a fright when someone switched on the light and pressed a gun to my head."
"They tied our feet and our hands with shoelaces."
"Then they found my police identity card in my purse and they wanted to know where my service pistol was."
Woke with a fright
"I tried to explain to them that I didn't carry a gun but they kept asking for the firearm, the safe, money and how many people were in the house."
Suzette said the robbers took her bank card and asked her for her PIN.
I gave it to them but left out the last digit, she said.
"They said they were going to take one of us with them to draw money and if the number was wrong they would shoot us."
She said the robbers had put various household items, jewellery, R100 in cash and a cellphone in her car.
"They shoved clothing in our mouths and tied us up with Koos's ties.
Then they threw blankets and other clothing over our heads and turned up the music on the alarm clock next to my bed."
They tried to flee with Suzette's car but drove into a pillar on the property.
The car would not start again.
"They then fled with only a DVD player, R100, a cellphone and some of my father's clothes."
"I tried to untie my hands but I couldn't."
"Koos rolled off the bed, I think in an attempt to breathe.
I heard him moving around on the floor and then it was quiet," she said.
When she eventually got her hands loose and could open her mouth, she screamed to the neighbours for help.
When a neighbour arrived her husband was already dead.
"My husband's life was taken for R100 and a cellphone," Suzette said sadly.
- Beeld