Peripoli, Giovanni 74, retired miner, dead: stomach sliced open, Virginia, Free State knife attack – nothing stolen

2010-08-02 Tom de Wet writes in Volksblad from Virginia, Free State. – “Please bring me a pillow, the ground is very hard,” were the last words 74-year-old Giovanni Peripoli whispered to his wife Lina where he lay with a gaping wound, his intestines spilling out on the paving in the back yard of his house. He had just returned from the bank. Peripoli who ives at 55 Virginia Road, was attacked on Saturday in broad daylight in this busy street by an unknown young man wielding a brand-new butcher’s knife. The cardboard box in which the knife had been bought was also found on the crime scene. Peripoli was stabbed three times in the stomach, and the knife was twisted with each stab. According to paramedics at the scene it looking like his entire stomach had been sliced open from side to side. Mrs Lina Peripoli, told Volksblad shortly after the murder that she had been busy in the kitchen when her husband returned from home at about 10:30. He had been to the bank, among other things. “I went to the back yard after I heard him call my name a few times. I found him lying on the pavement in a huge pool of blood. “I tried to help him, but I had to run into the house to call an ambulance and the police. His last words were when he asked me for a pillow – the ground was very hard and cold.”She demonstrated to Volksblad how the knife must have been stabbed and twisted, according to all indications, in her husband’s stomach each time. Peripoli was stabilised at the scene by Netcare 911 paramedics before being taken to the Oppenheimer hospital in Welkom, where he later died. SAPS spokesman Malebo Khosana quoted witnesses as saying that a young man had jumped over the gate after Peripoli arrived at home (from the bank) and closed the gate behind his car. After gutting the old man with the butcher’s knife, the young black man jumped back over the fence again and jumped into a car – presumably a black Chevrolet – which was waiting around the corner and fled the scene. Nothing was stolen. http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Mans-stomach-sliced-open-20100801