Teresa and Steven van Zyl, bludgeoned while asleep in bed, Sundra Dec 7 2010
Pregnant Afrikaner mom Teresa and her husband Steven van Zyl were brutally bludgeoned in their beds at 1am on Tuesday December 7 2010 in Denne Avenue, at the Sundra smallholdings. Their 14-month-old son Edwin-James, asleep in his cot next to his parents, was blood-splattered but unharmed. Mrs Van Zyl is 8 months pregnant. The couple is in critical condition in Johannesburg hospital.
Mrs Van Zyl’s dad Joe Pretorius said the entire room looks like a bloodbath. “The entire bed, bedroom wall and also various places inside the apartment is smeared with blood.” Police suspect that the attackers, armed with hammers, broke into a tiny bathroom window and then proceeded to hack away at the couple asleep in their beds. A portion of Mr Van Zyl’s skull was crushed and his jaw-bone was completely severed from his face. He works at Midas in Springs as a mechanic. Bloodied hammers and hammer-heads were left behind on the bed and in the apartment. The baby was spattered with blood but unharmed, said the grandparents who now are looking after their little grandson. Mrs Van Zyl managed to flee to her brother J J Pretorius who lives abou 40 metres away from them. The couple was first rushed to Delmas hospital for stabilisation but then transferred to the Johannesburg general hospital.
Mr Pretorius said it looks as if the unborn child has not been injured during the attack. ‘My beautiful child’s face probably will be scarred for the rest of her life,’ he said, heartbroken.
SAPS station commander in Sundra, captain Salomé van der Westhuizen, said the stench of blood was ‘overwhelming’ at the crime scene. She also noticed that very little of any value was stolen: a worthless casing from a computer, and a cheap DVD-player. Many valuable items were left untouched in the apartment. Contact her at telephone 00136611225 http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Boewe-val-paar-aan-met-hamers-20101207
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Clicks’ pharmacists Schalk and Theresa Du Plooy brutally murdered, Dunnottar – drug-addicted relative arrested with comrade
Jacques Steenkamp writes in Beeld that a well-known Afrikaans couple who worked as pharmacists at Clicks drugstores outlets in Nigel and Springs, were found brutally murdered in the veldt near the black squatter camp of Daveyton near Brakpan. http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Aptekers-vermoor-hul-lyke-in-veld-gegooi-20101207
The couple had numerous knife-wounds and were also bludgeoned with ‘a blunt weapon’, said SAPS warrant-officer Toimmy Tomlinson. A member of the public came across the gruesome find on Tuesday. The police have already arrested the couple’s arrested son – who was discharged from a rehabilitation clinic only a month earlier. The couple were found still dressed in their night-clothes. Their family car was abandoned next to their bodies. The two male suspects are scheduled for their first remand-appearance in Nigel magistrate’s court on charges of double-murder. Colleagues and friends told Beeld that Du Plooy was ‘a wonderful guy who was always smiling.:” He was well-known as a pharmacist. The Du Plooy couple had no biological offspring but have an adopted son. http://www.beeld.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Aptekers-vermoor-hul-lyke-in-veld-gegooi-20101207
"Whoonga" Drug: A New Twist in South Africa's AIDS War
November 24, 2010 - Drug users and health-care officials in South Africa are “ diverting “ the tons of the antiretroviral pills intended for AIDS patients and mixing them in illicit concoctions to get high.
Foreign donors ship the drugs in for free by the container-loads to help stave off the onset of full-blown AIDS. Now a new, dangerous underground drug-culture centering around ARVs has sprung up, and gangs are waging turf-wars to get control of the trade on the streets.
Health experts say the lethal drug-mix is so powerful that addiction occurs within just days – and that users also become so aggressive that they will kill to get their hands on new supplies each day. Health-officials earn huge sums from their illegal sales, and patients sell their ARVs for use in whoonga – people even deliberately infect with HIV to get their hands on ARVs.
AIDS is already a source of damaging myths in South Africa, such as that the disease can be prevented by raping a virginal child or ‘showering after sex” with an HIV-positive partner… Child-rapes have become epidemic in the country.
Some drug dealers are suspected of stretching the whooga mixture with soap powder and even rat poison to increase their profits. "We are seeing the use of whoonga in communities and its very widespread. It's a substance that is openly spoken about in communities," says Lihle Dlamini of the Treatment Action Campaign, which has lobbied hard to improve the government's response to AIDS.
Drug dealers "are taking this treatment that is supposed to assist people living with HIV and abusing it," Ms. Dlamini says. Robberies targetting AIDS clinics also are booming.
Carol du Toit of South Africa's National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. Staff members of her private organization are seeing an countrywide increase in whoonga users, with many testing positive for heroin. They need six or seven hits a day to stay high.
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