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Anna-Marie Saaiman, 78, fights off attackers at Pretoria smallholding

Bleeding pensioner fights off 'mad' attacker who bit off a finger tip…

Saaiman Anna-Marie attacked Pretoria North smallholding Aug 20 2009 Graeme Hosken reports in the Pretoria News on August 21 2009

"I was not going to let that man kill my husband. I got angry and I fought back."

These were the defiant words of Pretoria pensioner Anna-Marie Saaiman, 78, who although bleeding heavily after her attacker bit off the tip of her ring finger to try and get to her wedding ring, beat off the man trying "to kill" her husband, Koert, 80, at their smallholding in Kromdraai, north of Pretoria on Thursday. The Saaimans had just returned from Pretoria where they had done their weekly shopping, when they were attacked at their modest home.

As Koert unloaded the shopping and Anna-Marie opened up the kitchen door, their attacker, who they had seen walking past their home as they left for the shops earlier in the day, attacked them. 'I thought it was over but he came back at us again'

Hitting Saaiman over the head before holding her around the neck and throttling her, the man told her to keep quiet.
Instead a defiant Saaiman screamed to her husband for help as she wrestled with her attacker who beat her over the head with a spanner before he grabbed a knobkerrie and proceeded to hit her.

  • As her husband ran inside to help, the man turned on him kicking him to the ground before he hit him repeatedly with the knobkerrie, eventually breaking it over his arm.

He wanted to kill us…

Horne Ella Help Me

It was at that point that Saaiman launched herself at her husband's assailant, hitting him on the back and head with a sjambok before grabbing a piece of the broken knobkerrie and beating the attacker with it.
As she did so the man turned on her grabbing her hand biting the tip of her ring finger off in an attempt to get to her wedding ring.

Saaiman, who often play wrestles with her grandson when he comes to visit, managed to kick her attacker "where it hurts" causing him to let go of her as he fell to the ground.  Her husband, seizing the opportunity, managed to push him out of their home.  "I thought it was over but he came back at us again. As my husband held the door shut the man broke a window and pulled off the burglar bars.

"He was mad. He wanted to get to us. You could see that he wanted to kill us," she said. Saaiman and her husband eventually managed to scare off the man when he heard them phoning the police and friends for help.  Bleeding profusely Saaiman was rushed to Eugene Marais Hospital by her son-in-law where doctors examined and treated for her injuries before sending her home.  Saaiman said if it had not been for the wrestling lessons from her grandson they might have been killed.  "He taught me what I needed today to keep us alive. When the man grabbed me around the neck I knew what to do."

Women targetted in Cape Town and Berea

 

Kristina Gebhardt, 28, beaten to death over a $2 parking row with guards…

Gebhardt Kristina murdered over R20 parking row Cape Argus Aug 23 2009 August 23 2009 -  Ester Lewis and Laverne de Vries report in the Cape Argus that bloodspatters on a wall in a dingy closet-like room in a city parking garage marked the violent murder of German immigrant Kristina Gebhardt, who was beaten to death and then dumped in the boot of her car. The German woman, who had been living in Cape Town for more than five years, would have turned 28 on the day of her murder. http://www.capeargus.co.za/?fArticleId=5134048

Gebhardt's bloodstained body was found in the boot of her Fiat Uno on Wednesday night. Her hands had been bound with electrical wire, believed to have been taken from supplies belonging to a company contracted to do renovations to a building on the corner of Loop and Bloem streets in the city centre. Police are waiting for the results of the post mortem to determine whether she was raped.

A police source revealed that one of her alleged assailants had been found driving her car in his boxer shorts and a blood-soaked T-shirt.

Gebhardt worked part-time shifts at the Baobab book store just metres away from where she was beaten to death. Her employer, Julie Aitchison, told the Cape Argus she had been approached by a security guard last week and told she could use the Bloem Street basement parking. It had been agreed that she would pay the guard R20 a day.
The book store owner had offered the parking bay to Gebhardt in her absence.

A police source said that on the day of Gebhardt's murder, an argument had allegedly ensued between Gebhardt and a security guard over the R20 payment for the parking. The guard, arrested after Gebhardt's body was found in her car, which he had been driving, lived in a musty little room at the entrance of the basement parking lot. Police said they were looking for two other day-shift guards.

Prayer mat, prayer books…

It is believed that these two men also had been present when the alleged argument between Gebhardt and the guard took place. The three are alleged to have kept her captive in the little room where they allegedly bound her hands, beat her and possibly raped her.

  •  Inside the room was a single mattress, a French tutorial, a prayer mat and prayer books. A pair of jeans was still hanging on the back of the door. A few bloodstains were splattered against the faded cream wallpaper.

When members of a Central Improvement District (CID) patrol pulled over the driver of Gebhardt's Fiat Uno on Wednesday night, the back seats of the car had been dropped. Her body was found shoved into the enlarged boot space. Gebhardt's laptop computer and cellphone were missing but her wallet was still on her battered body.

More than an hour after she left work, Gebhardt's boyfriend had called her on her cellphone and tried the bookstore, but to no avail. He had then driven to a Loop Street coffee shop where the couple had often gone, hoping to find her there. Instead, he had seen her green Fiat Uno being driven by a stranger, prompting him to launch himself at the car in an attempt to stop it.

  • The CID patrol, who had witnessed his desperate rescue attempt, had come to his aid and had forced the car to stop.

Aitshison labelled the murder a "tragic loss and waste of life". She said she had met the "bubbly" Gebhardt through friends and had occasionally asked her to mind the book store while she was out. "I can't begin to imagine what her family is experiencing in Germany," Aitshison said.

Another friend, Fuad Matthews, described Gebhardt as a vibrant person. Matthews, who celebrated his birthday yesterday, said: "I wondered why she wasn't calling me. I was going to send her flowers for her birthday today. "You could not have found a more beautiful person, inside and out. It's really not cool for any human being to experience what she did. "Cape Town is not going to be the same again."

Police said they had very few leads because they were having difficulty identifying the two alleged accomplices and had no addresses for the men, who are still on the run. Police inspector Carin Loock said the suspect would face a murder charge when he appeared in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court on Monday. No further arrests have been made.

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Ella Horne, 82, former concert pianist, lifelong resident of Berea, survives attack
  • ‘Who is this God you call for?” screamed her assailants while beating the old lady…

Horne Ella 82 attacked in Berea home August 23 2009 concert pianist August 23 2009 By Vivian Attwood – The Tribune. “While she was bludgeoned, bitten and repeatedly hurled to the floor by a young assailant who screamed: "Who is this God you call for?" an 82-year-old Berea resident battled to fathom the horror that had invaded her lifelong home.

Ella Horne, a former concert pianist who has lived in the wood and iron Victorian house at the corner of Sydenham and Essenwood roads since her birth, is known and loved by many residents in the area.

  • Her home, which is almost a century old, is admired daily by passersby as a reminder of a bygone age. It is thought to be the only remaining dwelling of its kind in the city.

Horne is a former concert pianist who worked for the Daily News for 20 years until her retirement at the age of 70. Despite her advanced age she still takes an active interest in the community, does her own housework and reads newspapers avidly.  The members of St Thomas Anglican Church, of which Horne has been a member since childhood, have been particularly hard hit by news of her terrible ordeal.

  • Describing Horne as "very devout, and one of the most cheerful people around", congregant Charmaine Silcox said she and others had tried over the years to persuade their friend to relocate to a retirement village, without success. "The only positive aspect of this brutal event is that now she will relocate to a safer and more comfortable environment."

Horne has agreed to settle in a retirement home once she has recovered from her ordeal. The nightmare began at 12.30pm on August 14. From her hospital bed Horne described how she was woken by the sound of breaking glass. "I went to the back of the house to investigate, and then moved to the front bedroom. As I opened the door the picture window exploded, and then he was on me, with his fingers around my throat. I didn't stand a chance."

Her assailant launched a savage and protracted attack, punching her repeatedly in the face and doing his best to strangle her. He also smashed a heavy china fruit bowl against her skull.

"I prayed so hard," said Horne. "'Dear God, protect me.' Then my strength started to go. 'I'm dying,' I said. I closed my eyes and tried not to let my breathing show. He left me then, and started to trash my home. Finally it was quiet. I lay there, covered in blood, with my darling cat beside me."

  • The assailant ransacked the house and stole a television set, electric irons, radios and an unspecified number of other valuables. Horne was left to lie unattended for more than 16 hours before a passing motorist noticed the broken window and alerted the police.

"After a very long time I heard voices, and then two policemen were by my side. They were wonderful. When the ambulance arrived, the rescue medics also treated me very gently. I cannot praise them all enough," said Horne.

Medical personnel have expressed amazement at Horne's resilience, particularly since she had a triple heart bypass some years ago. While her blood pressure was initially dangerously high, she is responding well to treatment and her brother, Stan, 86, and niece Andrea, who rushed from Gauteng to be at her side, hope that she will be discharged soon.
Margaret Horne (no relation), who has been Ella's neighbour and friend for more than 30 years, condemned the savagery of the attack, but said she was not surprised Ella had survived.  "She is a formidably strong woman, and her mind is as sound as a bell," she said.

Horne is almost more concerned with the welfare of her beloved ginger tom cat, Cheeky Boy than she is about her own plight. "He must have been so frightened. I do hope that I can find him a new home where someone else will love him as much as I have done," she said.

  • Of her attacker, she had this to say: "I do not hate him and I am not filled with anger. He did not know what he was doing. No one taught him right from wrong." 

Her magnanimity is not shared by her neighbours and friends. Neighbour Allan Reinecke has vowed the community will clamp down on crime. "We will not take acts like this lying down. If criminals keep targeting Berea, they should be warned: we will take firm action." This article was originally published on page 8 of Tribune on August 23, 2009
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20090823063803773C518529

Kathrina Fourie, 85, attacked at FS farm

 

5 men attack 85-year-old Afrikaner farm woman with knives

2009-08-19 Bloemfontein - Three of five armed men were arrested after a gang of five attacked  85-year-old Afrikaner farm woman Kathrina Fourie near Soutpan, Free State police said on Wednesday. Sergeant Thandi Mbambo said five men attacked the woman on the farm Goedverblijf near Soutpan while her partner was fetching farmworkers on Tuesday morning.

Police said the farmer returned around at 07:00 on Tuesday to find footprints leading to the garage door, which connected with the house.  When he went to the front door of the house he heard screams. "He found Kathrina Fourie in the passage bleeding heavily. She had several stab wounds."

Mbambo said Mrs Fourie was taken to the Pelonomi regional hospital in Bloemfontein and was in a critical condition.
Neighbouring farmers were alerted about the incident and “suspicious-looking men” were seen running through the fields in the direction of the adjacent squatter camp.

  • Three men were arrested with the help of farmworkers on their way to work. A laptop computer, two cellphones and batteries allegedly stolen from the farm were found in their possession. It’s not known when the other two men are expected to be arrested.

Mbambo said a case of attempted murder was opened and the three men, aged 18 and 19, from Bultfontein and Soutpan, would appear at the Brandfort Magistrate's Court on Friday. SAPA
http://www.news24.com/Content/SouthAfrica/News/1059/0a60ae7b74314c66a6402cf928394879/19-08-2009-10-10/5_men_attack_woman,_85

Tracey-Leigh Frankish, Marius Labuschagne murdered, Farmall AH

 
Smallholders north of Johannesburg live in fear – vacate area in large numbers

Frankish Tracey-Leigh murdered Farmall Aug 18 2009 smallholding Lauren Cohen reports on August 18 2009 that five days after “flower child” mom Tracey-Leigh Frankish’s screams scared off would-be burglars, house robbers struck again, this time taking her life.

A cheap TV set, hi-fi and a small amount of money were the only things stolen from the murdered 33-year-old Gauteng sales representative’s cottage in Farmall, an agricultural holding north of Fourways. She worked at the food manufacturing company Ma Baker.

Johan Burger, senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, who last year co-authored a report on crime and public security in South Africa, said the murder highlighted how political promises had not been kept as far as the eradication of farm attacks was concerned. “The conclusion we came to in our report was that there was a vacuum [in crime-fighting regarding] rural safety.” Burger said this was a result of the phasing out of South African National Defence Force units, or commandos, deployed specifically to patrol rural areas in South Africa since 2003.

“[The phasing out] was not supposed to happen until sector policing, police reservists and crime-combating units were in place. In almost all [rural areas] we visited in our research, none of this had been done,” Burger added.

Frankish’s murder means that her seven-year-old son, Taidg, will grow up without a mother. The break-in happened in the early hours of Sunday morning, when Taidg was with his grandparents, Fred and Helen Britz, at their Bryanston home.

  • “We’ve told him what happened, but I don’t think he realises what death is all about,” Fred Britz said.
    “He said: ‘They’ve killed my mom, they shot her’. It’s tough, the circumstances of her death. We never thought it would happen to us.”

Frankish, who was in the process of divorcing her husband, who lives in the UK, had been leasing a cottage on a plot.
Private security company RSS Security responded to a panic signal followed by an alarm signal at 12.47pm.  A security officer who arrived at the premises six minutes later found the security gate on the front door had been forced open.
Frankish was found kneeling in front of her bed, with a gunshot wound in the head.

  • “When the security officer went outside to radio for medical back-up he saw three suspects fleeing into the bushes and gave chase,” said RSS Security managing director Sean Mooney. The unidentified men got away.

Dion Stephens, a school friend, told The Times that Frankish had been a humanitarian.  “She wanted to fix the world we live in, quit her job, teach people how to grow vegetables and live a self-sustainable life. The people she wanted to help were the people who murdered her,” he said.

Friends have been posting messages on Frankish’s Facebook page, where Stephens yesterday asked people to honour her memory by wearing purple or turquoise, “her favourite colours”, to her memorial service.

Dean Dawson, of food manufacturing company Ma Baker, where Frankish worked, said staff were distraught at her murder.  “It feels surreal. It’s disturbing. She was a flower-power child, if I can put it that way, friendly to everybody.”

Murder blamed on victim by cop: ‘the door was left unlocked…’

Douglasdale police spokesman Inspector Balan Muthan confirmed a murder case was under investigation – and blamed the murder on the victim: “There are no suspects. The front door was left unlocked. Police and the security firm reacted within minutes, but the suspects had fled and the area is so dark at night,” Muthan said. A memorial service is being planned at the Emmarentia Botanical Gardens in northern Johannesburg this weekend. 
http://www.newsvibe.co.za/external.php?node=135471

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Marius Labuschagne murdered August 1 2009 Farmall smallholdings

Lauren Cohen also reported on August 20 2009 in The Times of Johannesburg that even before Farmall resident Tracey-Leigh Frankish’s murder, the northern Johannesburg smallholders had been living in fear of “marauding crime gangs”. Jerry de Beer, who lives on a plot not far from where burglars shot and killed Frankish, 33, last weekend, told The Times that the single mother’s murder was the second in the area in just two weeks.

“Marius Labuschagne, living on a plot in a caravan, was murdered on August 1. Only his cellphone was taken,” De Beer said.  “Residents are living in absolute fear every night as the marauding gangs go about their deeds unhindered,” he said.

  • De Beer has been keeping track of crime in his area and his records show that there have been nine armed robberies and 27 burglaries in the area this year alone.

“Barely half of the 114 plots in Farmall are occupied; residents are starting to abandon their properties out of fear and desperation.

“We have no means to protect ourselves — normal electric fences, beams and alarms are not a deterrent anymore.
“Even armed response when activated cannot guarantee that you will survive an attack from these ruthless, murdering thieves,” De Beer said. And the police, he claims, are not pulling their weight because they have failed to investigate three armed robberies committed on his property alone.

“There are so many trees”, whine the cops….

Balan Muthan, spokesman for the Douglasdale police, who are responsible for the area, said extra police officers and vehicles have now been brought in.  “We have also stepped up the number of patrols and the mounted unit is coming in,” Muthan said.