He allegedly kidnapped a woman, tied her to a tree and raped her before demanding a ransom. Days later he was dead.
|||Pretoria - Topless and with a gash to his head, the suspected kidnapper and rapist lay dead at the business premises of his victim's son.
He had been brutally assaulted by a mob in Soshanguve, six days after he allegedly kidnapped a 47-year-old woman in Hammanskraal and raped her before demanding money for her release.
The man allegedly kidnapped the woman, who cannot be named due to the nature of the crime, last Wednesday. Later that same day, he accepted a ransom of R4 000 from the woman’s son and then freed her.
Her son told the Pretoria News they had been in contact with the man via cellphone while negotiating the release of his mother. This made it easier to track down the suspect .
Together with family members, they trapped the man by phoning him and promising him a job. He agreed to meet them near the Father Smangaliso Mkhatshwa Centre, commonly known as Stout school, in Soshanguve.
“We already had his cellphone number; we were calling him from a different number to the one we used last week. We found that the number we called belonged to his partner, who relayed the message to him.”
He said the man agreed to meet them on Tuesday morning near the school. “However, he fled when he realised who his prospective employers would be. I knew what he looked like and so did my mother - she recognised him first.
“When he saw us he ran away. We yelled, vimba (catch him) and people who were in the area caught up with him and started beating him up. We were able to stop them from further assaulting him.
“We took him away with us to Hammanskraal because they would have killed him right there and then. They didn’t know what he did or was suspected of doing.”
Arriving at his business premises, they called the police, who had already been scheduled to visit the family to compile an identikit of the suspect in connection with the kidnap and rape case. “It thus made sense to take him there because we knew the police would be on the way,” he said.
But moments later the man took his last breath and died. When paramedics arrived, they confirmed that he was dead.
The woman’s son relived the moments that led to his mother’s freedom a week ago. He said he had tried to get the help of the police, but had been unsuccessful.
“That’s when we decided we would agree to paying the R4 000 ransom. It was late; the man told us where to meet him and I went to withdraw the money. He had my mother with him in a vehicle and only allowed her out when I gave him the money. All this time we were communicating via text messages and phone calls,” he said.
His mother told of the harrowing ordeal she had suffered.
She said the man kidnapped her outside her son’s business premises after he offered her a lift, telling her he was travelling in the same direction as her.
But he took a different route which led to a nearby bush where he tied her up and instructed her to call her children to solicit money from them.
“He tied me up to a tree before he raped me. He then drove off. But he left markings - plastic bottles on tree branches - so he would know where to find me when he returned.”
She claimed the man ripped off her dental jewellery using a pair of pliers.
Her son took the Pretoria News to the scene where his mother was kept hostage, and the markings used by the man were still visible. There were also ropes that were used to tie her up, and her hat was still at the scene.
“We didn’t want to touch anything, because we are still waiting for the police to come and investigate the scene,” he said.
For most of the day on Tuesday police were with the family taking down statements, before the dead man’s body was taken away.
tankiso.makhetha@inl.co.za
Pretoria News