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'Murderers shot an angel'
18/04/2007 09:45 - (SA)
Annelene Moses, Beeld
Johannesburg - "The murderers shot an angel," said a well-known opthalmologist from Sasolburg after his mentally handicapped son died in a robbery early on Tuesday morning.
"He was the best person ever. Everybody loved Pieter, 27. He was totally harmless and would never have hurt anybody."
Dr Johan de Lange and his wife, Maryna, were woken by two armed men about 04:00.
"I woke up with a start when a thin, black guy with a knife in his hand told me: 'Get out of bed'. They must have switched on the light. We were ordered to lie down on the floor."
Thought his daughter was being raped
The robber's accomplice aimed a gun at his wife. "He took my jewellery from the bedside table and put it in his bag. We lay down on the floor and they covered us with a sheet and blanket," she said.
Dr De Lange lay on his back and decided not to turn onto his stomach in order to keep an eye on the robbers.
"They covered our heads, but I kept removing the covers. I was thinking when I'm going to challenge the guy, because I knew I was going to do that. One of them said: 'We want guns'."
The next moment he heard shouting. He realised there had to be a third burglar and he feared he was raping his daughter, Elaine.
He decided to fight back when he heard a shot ring out in the house. He jumped up and shouted at the robbers, who got a fright and fired a shot in the couple's bedroom. The bullet slammed into a wall and the couple grabbed a walking stick and wooden spear, but the three men sailed through the dining room window "like three cats".
They had apparently gained entrance through this window, as the burglar bars had been sawn through. A bag of housebreaking equipment was later found inside the house.
Mrs De Lange, Pieter's stepmother, rushed to Pieter's room.
He was lying on his back with a bullet wound to the side of his head.
They suspected Pieter had yelled in fright when the armed man woke him up.
Pieter had lost a lot of blood and was airlifted by helicopter to Union Hospital in Alberton, where he died at 07:40 on Tuesday.
"He passed standard five at a special school. He was not bright, but he loved cattle and was, strangely enough, a very good golfer. He was an angel," said De Lange.
"I would like to congratulate President Thabo Mbeki for his observation that it is only a perception that crime is out of control."
Pieter leaves his biological mother, Daleen, and brothers Roelof and Arno, as well as his sisters Jana, Eunice and Vanessa.
- Beeld
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