It's all in the attitude and photo-shop. Dude what were you thinking?
A tale so ghastly it could very well be an episode on tales from the crypt.
The world is used to stories of horrific cruelty perpetrated by people that we sometimes forget the human aspect of the stories. A good example is of the very wealthy family who were brutally murdered in their very exclusive golf estate just outside Stellenbosch.
news was thick with headlines of the dastardly attack by “an assailant” on the Van Breda family in the De Zalze golf estate that claimed the lives of the father, mother and eldest son and leaving the 16 year old daughter with an axe wound to the head that ultimately severed her carotid artery. The 20 year old son amazingly “fought off this assailant” and even wounded the family’s attacker or so we are led to believe. The residents of De Zalze with their premature protestations demanded that the security must be upped to stop this type of heinous crime in their boomed, walled and access controlled estate by outside criminals however this may not be the case as we look further into the tragedy that is the De Zalze axe murders.
This story broke on a Tuesday morning and sent shock waves through the estate and the community in general. How could an “attacker” break into an exclusive golf estate, gain access to the home and bludgeon these people and then escape without detection? We must note that this estate has to say the very least super state of the art security and extremely stringent access controls not to mention a plethora of closed circuit television cameras. Big brother is very much in use at this golf estate.
The chance of a lone criminal gaining access and wandering about without being seen is near impossible. Add to that this lone criminal then just happened to choose a house where the surviving member of the family “accidentally forgot” to lock the front door that night has to have odds to the tune of a hundred thousand to one at least.
You see the surviving son claimed that he managed to fight off his attacker and wrest the axe from the assailants hand and then “chop” the assailant in the back of the head sending the criminal running from the scene bleeding. Holy cow this young man is a hero! Or is he?
Henri Van Breda survived the attack with a few scratches and bruises while his brother was bludgeoned to death in the same room Henri was sleeping in. You see Henri and Rudi shared a room and their beds were side by side. So in the statement Henri supplied the events occurred as such.
The axman entered the room and axed Rudi to death then left and despatched the father and mother, then bludgeoned Marli the 16 year old sister then the disorganised axe man returned for Henri who had by now gathered his kung Fu Chuck Norris skills enough to launch a counter strike on the criminal. Look I have seen some Sci- Fi movies that have amazing stunts and special effects and it is possible in those movies but in this case there is a blindingly obvious plot hole! Henri your story has more plot holes than a Michael Bay movie!
Now we take into account that the attack happened at around 3AM but Henri only calls the emergency services at around 07h30 AM. What was the delay? However another shocking chapter was about to unfold when he did eventually phone for assistance. His voice was eerily calm and collected for someone who just witnessed such barbarity and fought tooth and nail to ward off the attacker. Balderdash!!! This young man is hiding something.
You may walk with lions but the Hyena always lurks in the back ground
After he phoned the emergency services he then sauntered outside and sat on the doorstep where a neighbour finds him “emotionless”, the neighbour then apparently then also called the police and I am very sure the neighbours voice had a tad more emotion and urgency than Henri’s had. There are many clips of the call circulating and anyone with even the smallest brain can hear the monotone conversation like statement being given. Hell I am more articulated and “emotional” when ordering a take away pizza than Henri was considering what had supposedly just transpired.
Now we get to some real meat and bones.
It is easy to assume and be led astray by thumb suckery so I will now introduce some “proof” by means of a truly strange twist of fate.
We were looking for someone to come and do a thorough clean of our little home and we put the feelers out for a decent, trustworthy char. At my partners salon the landlord suggested the services of a very thorough lady named Clara who by happenstance is recently out of work. Yes she was the domestic char for the Van Breda’s of De Zalze.
So I am here typing away while their ex char is busy spring cleaning our tiny teeny two bedroom town house. It is quite a departure from her previous employer’s 4.7 million rand De Zalze mansion. I mean really! I am seriously nosey and in my roundabout way proceeded to interrogate her pretending I was simply finding out about her previous employment. Okay so in short Clara arrived in South Africa 10 years ago and worked for an upmarket guest house in Gordon’s bay for 7 years. Clara first met the Van Breda’s when they came back to South Africa from Australia and stayed in the guest house. I guess they were enamoured by her service and offered her a job at their newly purchased 4.7 million rand De Zalze home.
In my brief cross questioning I gleaned the following information.
*Rudi and Henri shared a room.Henri was basically a loner and there are rumours of his “drug” habit and that was causing dismay with the father. Could it be that the talk of exile from the family and his “inheritance” being scuppered due to his dope fiendish actions led him to commit the worst type of crime? I think it’s very plausible especially when family worth is in the generalised arena on 180 million Rand. Hell that kind of money corrupts and makes people do seriously devious stuff. Added to that are reports from the police onsite that there were no photos of Henri adorning any of the walls or mantle pieces. Mmm looks to me like Henri was the black sheep of the Van Breda fandamily and in a moment of rage he discombobulated and went postal on his family with an axe which he purchased and even had sharpened which shows it was a crime that was building, boiling and was indeed premeditated, all he needed was the right time and correct amount of narcotics in the system to send him “nuclear”.
* Mr Van Breda was a strict man.
*Mrs Van Breda would on occasion open up about private issues and then suddenly clam up.
* Rudi had some or other business opportunity he was involved with in Australia.
* Marli was also in some way or other being set up with a business plan for her future in Australia.
* Henri had bugger all plans.
* Henri was not a very happy smiley person.
*The family elders were super secretive.
He committed the crimes at 03h00 and by all accounts he possibly “drugged” his family at dinner and then set about axing them when they were near comatose, this could possibly explain how Marli was able to cling onto life with her life threatening injuries.It would be very difficult to axe four people without any type of fight having been put up by the four victims, an axe been swung at skulls in the dead of night would make a very loud crack! Look I want to believe she survived but hell man, having your head cleaved with an axe so deep that the police were shocked and having her carotid artery severed and still clinging to life for 4 hours while Henri did what the hell ever he did for those 4 hours before calling the police is mind boggling. In my opinion he sat there and waited to see if anyone was alive and then started to create his alibi by self-inflicting some cuts and bruises and coming up with the most implausible excuse ever put forward. Anyone with a brain can see his story just is not holding water.
All I have to say to Henri is “Henri, baby, what the fuck were you thinking dude?”
The whole story put forth by Henri is pathetic and beyond belief. He is so obviously guilty that all I can deduce is that the police are playing mind games with him waiting for him to slip up and incriminate himself. He was sent to his uncle in Stellenbosch and the media reported in one piece that he was in his uncles “custody”. This screams mind games by the police. They have not officially charged him but are using certain trigger words to put him under pressure. He will betray himself and crack soon. The reports that Marli is semi-conscious and sort of lucent may be a ploy to put Henri under undue pressure. For all we know she may have passed or is in a vegetative state. If however the police release tactical statements alluding to her recovery that will naturally lead Henri to start the break down phase of police manipulation. Eventually stress will lead to an outburst or total confession. It does not help Henri’s image that the attorney that got the honeymoon killer Shrien Diwani off the hook has been semi covertly hired to represent Henri.!!!! That just reeks of collusion, complicity, conspiracy and guilt!
Now I realize that my story telling format may seem a bit disjointed and all over the place, do not be fooled by this. I am merely doing what Henri did. His statement and timeline of events are just as staccato as the way I am writing this. He was making stuff up as he went.
Clara also mentioned to me that the police have interviewed her numerous times since the Tuesday of the brutality but they were not so interested in her whereabouts but the interactions of the family especially between the father and Henri. Odd that is not? Look I must admit I hid all large knives and stuff while she was here today just in case but I can truly say she is clean as a whistle and cannot be implicated in any way. A strange point made by Clara was that when she arrived at De Zalze that Tuesday was that she arrived at the house and the police were on scene and asked her to open a “gate” to let the family’s dog out. She noted that every time she got to the house and opened the gate the dog would bark at her but on that Tuesday the dog literally ran and jumped into her arms. The dog did not go near Henri! The pet felt safer running to a domestic char that it barked at everyday than go to Henri, got to wonder why?
Listen, we are all educated here and it would be completely dilly for us to accept Henri’s cockamamie explanation of events. The tool is frikkin guilty. He will not see a single day in jail because he will be sent to a psychiatric facility and interned there as a mental case. The argument for that will be due to his drug dependence and super cool hand Luke phone call to emergency services. I would not at all be surprised if he is diagnosed as schizophrenic, shit anyone can act nuts nowadays and get away with murder only to be given laughable jail terms or be acquitted and sent to a nut house. I am betting that this is where they are going with this case. It is a travesty of justice that rich folk can be treated differently from poor scum for identical crimes. Lock this chop up in general population for 30 years without parole and let him suffer like his poor sister will suffer for the rest of her life if she survives.
Imagine the mental anguish of lying there in ICU knowing that something horrid happened to you and your family, mulling over and over the event not being able to really vocalise the terror and loss? The media reported on many occasions that Marli was in Stellenbosch medi clinic and then transferred to Vegelegen Medi clinic in Somerset West where there was police protecting her, then suddenly they reported that she was in a Stellenbosch exclusive clinic. Look a person in her condition would not be loaded into an ambulance and willy nilly transported on road between the two facilities, no they would use the Flight For Life chopper to transport her between the two sites which are 20+ kilometres apart and I did not once see the helicopter criss- crossing the sky. The chance that the clinic would load a patient with such life threatening injuries into an ambulance and risk traffic is laughable at best. I suspect that the ruse of transferring Marli was just to place Henri under more mental stress and fatigue and even reporting that Marli is semi-conscious may be a tactic to push Henri over the top. Hell I truly hope Marli makes it and recuperates enough to be lucid and compos mentis so she can inherit the family business and fortune. I f she is mentally handicapped she will be hospitalised and all the money will go to a trust. Either way Henri won’t see 1 cent and that is perfect.
The only way this story could get any odder is if the police bring top cop Piet Byleveld out of retirement to investigate. In a direct translation from Afrikaans his surname translates to "Axe field". That would simply be too convenient. This is no light matter but the chances of Piet Byleveld leading the investigation would be almost poetic.
HENRI YOU DRUGGIE DOLT, YOU DID IT AND YOU KNOW IT! There is no escape from your sins.