A private investigator who stepped in as police had no leads nearly three months after a Cullinan man was murdered in his home and his house burnt down, solved the case in days and charged just R10.
Darryl Els told the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday that on September 27, 2009, he was watching an episode of Carte Blanche on television.
He saw an insert about the murder of Piet van den Berg, who had been shot dead by robbers two days before his 64th birthday.
Van den Berg’s wife, Madeleine, 61, was locked in a cupboard in the bedroom and the intruders set the house alight.
Speaking outside the court on Tuesday, Els said that when he heard no arrests had been made, he decided to take over and charged the family, who had lost everything in the fire – a mere R10 for investigating the case.
Van den Berg was shot dead in the passage of his home on July 11, 2009, as he took one of the robbers to the dining room to show him where a watch was.
His wife endured several hours’ torment, in which her hand was slashed with a knife and she was left for dead in a cupboard.
She managed to free herself and frantically tried to drag her husband’s body out of the burning house.
Nearly three months later, the couple’s daughter, Theresa Strydom, appeared on Carte Blanche, pleading for help.
“Her cry for help made me respond,” Els told the court.
He obtained her number from Carte Blanche and called Strydom, who gave him the go-ahead to investigate the case.
Els said he told the investigating officer about this agreement, and asked for the case docket. He said the policeman was “only too willing to assist”.
On going through the docket, Els noted there was a document from a cellphone service provider, relating to a new SIM card that had been inserted into a phone stolen in the attack.
He phoned a friend working at a service provider and asked her to try to ascertain details pertaining to the new SIM card. She phoned him back a day later, with an address.
The woman living at the address directed him to her boyfriend, known as Bongani, and a security guard, who had the stolen phone in his possession and said he had bought it from someone else. This led him to a man called Rasta, who pointed out someone else.
The chain provided by the cellphone SIM card eventually led the private investigator to the suspects, who were arrested with the help of the police.
http://liarcatchers.com/cold_cases.html
Van den Berg’s widow quickly identified two of the three suspects at an identity parade. She was not sure about the third man.
Mduduzi Hlengethwa, 26, Given Kanyane, 23, and Wonder Makwakwa, 18, have pleaded not guilty to murder, robbery and arson.
Van den Berg identified Kanyane as the gang leader, who was extremely aggressive and as a person who wielded the gun.
Makwakwa, she said, was armed with a knife while the third man, whom she was not sure of, had a plastic shopping bag around his neck, in which he put the jewellery.
Els said outside the court said that he felt it was his calling to help the family.
“My ex left me a few days prior to me watching Carte Blanche after we were together for 24 years. When I saw the crying Strydom on the programme, I had to help, as I knew how it felt to lose someone.”
Els said that the rules of the profession compelled him to charge a fee for investigating the case, so he charged R10.- Pretoria News
