Little Taegrin's horrific journey to death

His mother had tried but could not hold on to her little boy, so she ran.

She raced up long, dark Sunny Street after the hijacked car as she watched her four-year-old's body flapping against the wheel. She hoped.

The case of four-year-old Taegrin Morris, dragged mercilessly beside his parents' hijacked car, has stunned a South Africa accustomed to a relentless onslaught of horrific crime. It has provoked an outpouring of anger and grief among the community of Reiger Park on the East Rand, and far beyond.

The Sunday Times revisited the scene of the crime this week, tracing Taegrin's horrific 3.4km journey.

On Saturday last week, Shaun Johannes and his 10-year-old daughter, Shaunita, were travelling down Sunny Street on their way to visit family in Daisy Street when the hijacked white Golf GTI came careening around the corner.

Johannes saw something swinging along the side of the car and being thrown back against the tyre.

Shaunita was first to recognise it. "That's a boy! That's a baby!"

The stolen car slowed, coming to a near stop.

Taegrin's cousin, 15-year-old Jayden Kok, was nearing the same corner. His mother had sent him to fetch Taegrin for a visit.

"Jayden! Jayden! Save me!" screamed the child.

Jayden broke into a sprint, racing towards his cousin trapped beside the rear passenger door.

"I'm coming, Taega! I'm coming to save you!"

Jayden grabbed the tiny hand, working furiously to free his cousin.

The car moved again, even faster this time.

"The boy was flapping against the back tyre," said Johannes.

Johannes, in his Toyota Conquest, and a minibus taxi gave chase, reaching 140km/h along a 500m stretch of Sunny Street.

The 207 horsepower GTI can accelerate from 0-100km/h in 6.9 seconds. By the time Johannes and the white taxi reached the top of the road, they were chasing a ghost.

Chantel Morris, her eight-year-old daughter, Erin, and Taegrin were leaving her mother's house at about 7.30pm when it happened.

"Voetsek! Voetsek! Ons vat die f*kken kar! [We are taking the f**king car!]" the hijacker pointing the firearm screamed at Chantel.

Erin jumped out and Chantel managed to get Taegrin, who had sat behind the driver, out of the car. But he was still tangled in the safety belt. The hijackers sped away, ripping the child from his mother. He screamed for her.

"My child! My child!" screamed Chantel. But they were gone. So Chantel ran.

With no street lights, Sunny Street is illuminated by the faint glow from houses and the dim pall of light towers synonymous with townships. On a chilly winter night, even the drug dealers who usually perch on the concrete blocks along the road have sought the warmth of their homes.

Nearly 500m further, across a stop street, the road curves 70 degrees to the right into Goedehoop Avenue. The strip mall selling daily needs and the ubiquitous tavern are on the left and had been closed hours before 63-year-old Andrew Varrie came trundling along in his 22-year-old Nissan Skyline, en route to pick up his daughter at the airport.

He saw the lights of a car coming up behind him. "He was driving so fast," said Varrie.

Varrie and another car tried to pull as far right as possible to give the speedster room to pass.

"Then I heard something. It sounded like a cat screaming," he said.

As the car overtook him on a bend, Varrie rolled down his window to better hear the sound.

"As he was passing me, the sound got louder. It was screaming."

Middel Street is the darkest strip of road in Reiger Park, surrounded as it is by patches of bluegum trees and open veld.

Varrie floored the accelerator pedal, gearing down and urging his car to action so he get could a better view.

"I saw something hanging out of the side, dragging on the ground," he said.

The Golf was moving ever faster.

Within seconds, Varrie had lost sight of the car.

Taegrin's father, Elwin, had been alerted to the hijacking. He had travelled ahead to a friend's house in neighbouring Cinderella. He called everybody he could think of. Radio stations put out appeals. People responded immediately. They had seen the car racing past the shopping mall across from Reiger Park and into Boksburg town.

The red-brick building with its dramatic arches has been empty for years. The braai stands and tree line that separate the building from Boksburg Lake are reminiscent of a time when families would go there, perhaps on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, to enjoy the tranquility of the lake.

For months, the scarred building has been home to vagrants. Hilton Williams is one of its residents. He is a drug addict. He has been a drug addict for many years and his parents do not want him in their house. It was not always like this. Originally from Reiger Park, Williams remembers Elwin Morris and watched him progress in life.

"We grew up a few streets away from one another. He went one way, I went another."

On Saturday evening, Williams and his roommates, two of them women, were warming themselves at a fire and with some booze, playing cards. They heard a car pull up.

Williams, sitting on an empty 25-litre oil drum and closest to the "window", stood on his seat and peeked down into the parking lot.

Two men stepped out of the car, one wearing white overalls. The driver reached back inside the car and pulled out a gun.

The two women wanted to see.

"Voetsek!" snapped Williams.

The hijackers looked up.

"Hurry up, my man. There are people up there watching," said one of the hijackers.

Williams crept through the familiar darkness of the building, following the hijackers as they passed, walking briskly, at the back, heading along the lakefront in the direction of the R21 highway.

Chantel, who had been joined by a friend and Jayden, had run right to edge of Reiger Park - 1.6km to a stone quarry long abandoned before the highway cuts the township off from Boksburg.

Johannes had joined them. The child is surely dead, he told the friend.

Moments later, the police called Chantel's aunt, Debra Boards. The car had been found. Keep the parents away from the scene. But Elwin and Chantel had to see.

And she sat there, in a parking lot in the shadow of a derelict building where all hope had gone.

"I couldn't hold on to him," said Chantel later at her house in Delmore Park, where mourners arrived like a goods train at a railway crossing.

Taegrin had had dreams of becoming an engineer, constantly taking his cars apart to examine how they worked. One day he would live in Germany, designing cars and owning a workshop where people would build his creations, he told his parents.

Yesterday, Taegrin was lowered into the ground, a model Ferrari and Bugatti perched on the brown coffin to keep him company.

Elwin and Chantel had started a savings account to ensure that "Taega" and his sister could fulfil their dreams.

The couple had always hoped for a pigeon pair. That would be enough. A girl for Chantel and a boy for Elwin. The father and son had shared a passion for cars, a highlight being the supercars on show recently at Nasrec. Each night, Taegrin would carefully select his clothes for the next day, brand names being critical, the Lacoste label paramount.

On Saturday, "Taega" and his dad were visiting friends. Taegrin usually frowned on intimacy among boys, but on this day, as they left, the toddler took time to hug and kiss his friends goodbye.

By the time the pair arrived home, "Taega" had decided it was his birthday, although it is actually in September. He sauntered out the front door and instructed the neighbour to bake him a cake. She produced a cupcake with five candles. Kids playing soccer in the street gathered to sing happy birthday to the little general.

"It's like he knew, like he was saying goodbye," said Elwin.

When the Morrises married 10 years ago, they moved to Delmore Park, a middle-class suburb about 5km from where they both grew up.

"I didn't want my kids to have role models who are gangsters and criminals," said Elwin.

But family and friends ensured that the Morris family were a regular presence in the East Rand township.

Taegrin was a kid who had it all mapped out.

"Teacher, me and Nasrine are going to get married one day and get a big house," he told his teacher, Gina van Schalkwyk.

On Monday morning, the 87 children at Geppetto Kids' Daycare gathered for their morning prayers.

"All the Grade Rs, stand up," instructed principal Veronica Nunn. "Now look at each other. Look at each other in the face. Look. Now tell me who of your little friends is not here."

"Taegrin!" shouted the toddlers in near perfect unison.

"Yes, and you won't see him ever again. He's gone to be with Jesus," said Nunn.

Yesterday afternoon, tens of thousands - on buses, motorcycles and on foot - arrived at the Van Dyk Cemetery in Boksburg to say farewell to the four-year-old.

"I love you. I love you," Elwin whispered as his son's remains were lowered into the ground.

Moments later, surrounded by a crush of cameras and kneeling, Chantel pressed her head against Elwin, closed her eyes and smiled.

trompb@sundaytimes.co.za