Gang's 3hr orgy of violence
2006-05-22 22:56
Gordon's Bay - A group of men in an orgy of sex and violence apparently first beat an elderly woman to death with a meat mallet before terrorising her wealthy neighbours for hours, eventually fleeing with goods worth thousands of rands.
When they fled in the owner's bakkie after more than three hours, a pregnant woman had been raped twice and the house owner had been stabbed twice in the back.
Four suspects, the youngest of whom is only 14, and all apparently from Khayelitsha, were arrested after rolling a stolen getaway bakkie a few kilometres from Gordon's Bay.
The body of Johanna "Joy" Retief van Aarde, 78, a widow, was found in her house at 7 Milnerton Road, Gordon's Bay, on Monday morning. She was still holding an alarm whistle.
Nine men plundered their house
Her body was found after somebody had noticed that something was amiss at her house, too, after the neighbours had called the police because their own house had been ransacked.
Van Aarde's tearful son, Oloff Bergh, 46, a transport contractor from Strand, told on Monday what a wonderful, well-loved person his mother was.
A neighbour, Calvin Bacon, 19, said nine men had entered their double-storey house at 5 Milnerton Road during the night.
He, a friend, his father and his father's 25-year-old, five-months-pregnant friend were asleep.
The men plundered the ground floor before entering the room where Calvin and Michael Billson, 19, were sleeping about 02:30.
All of them were armed with butcher's knives.
Stuffed clothes into suitcases, bags
Calvin and Michael were forced to strip down to their underpants, and during the next hour and a half the robbers took literally everything they laid their eyes on.
Some of the clothes they put on over their own, while the rest of the items were stuffed into the suitcases and bags.
When his father, Clifford, 40, the owner of Proplumb, woke up and entered the passage at the other end, he was overpowered and stabbed twice in the back.
His woman friend locked the bedroom door from the inside, but the robbers kicked it down.
The four of them were then forced into the double bed in this bedroom and tied up.
The apparent leader then told his father: "This is not a Bruce Willis movie, this is reality. Everybody has his bad days. I'm sorry to do this to you, but this is your bad day."
Pregnant woman raped in bathroom
Calvin said the robbers took R7 000 and jewellery from a safe in the room after demanding the safe keys, money and firearms from his father.
The youngest of the robbers then untied his father's girlfriend and took her to the bathroom.
Realising what he was up to, the "leader" stopped him.
But, as soon as the man had left the room, the youth raped her twice in the bathroom.
Back on the bed, the crying woman held on to Calvin's hand while he begged her to remain quiet and not to evoke more anger.
Eventually, some of the men took the woman downstairs and tied her up with a telephone cable.
Some of the men remained upstairs while the others loaded the stolen goods onto Bacon's double-cab bakkie.
After about three hours in the house, they left, but reversed the bakkie into the neighbour's wall.
About three kilometres further, at roadworks in Dennehof Street, they rolled the bakkie and had to continue their flight on foot.
Dead neighbour's house plundered
The 14-year-old rapist apparently was one of four who were later arrested by Strand police.
Calvin said police were still at their house when his uncle noticed that the security gate of the house next door was closed, but that the door was standing open.
Police found Van Aarde's body when they entered the house to investigate. Her house also had been plundered.
Anybody with information can call inspector Christene Stewart at 076 112 2392 or 021 856 2677.