EXTRACT | ‘Stellenbosch: Murder Town’ by Julian Jansen

ABOUT THE BOOK

Stellenbosch is world-renowned for its wine, gorgeous scenery and beautiful people. It’s the home of students working towards their future, successful businessmen and respected professors. But don’t let the luxury and blue mountains fool you. The sleepy town was the scene of crimes that rocked this community, the country and the world.

Over the past two decades the front pages of newspapers splashed the details of the murders of Inge Lotz, Hannah Cornelius, Susan Rohde and the Van Breda family. This book also contains lesser-known victims such as Felicity Cilliers, the farm worker whose murder was forgotten by all but her family.

The victims and murderers in the book come from all walks of life and confirm that not even Stellenbosch can escape the harsh reality of crime in South Africa.

Acclaimed author and journalist Julian Jansen's third book reads like a crime novel and contains never-before-published information on each crime.

EXTRACT 

CHARMELIN DAVIDS:
Crocodile tears flow in vain

On a winter’s morning in May 2009, 36-year-old Charmelin Davids was strolling unhurriedly down Stoffel Smit Road in Stellenbosch after doing her Saturday shopping. The plump woman loved dressing well. She always believed clothes made one feel good about oneself. She had picked a necklace of blue beads to wear with her green jeans and striped sweater, and a brightly coloured handbag to round off the outfit.

Her husband, Jerome, had dropped her off that morning at the cheese factory shop in Stellenbosch’s Plankenbrug industrial area with his workplace’s Corsa bakkie, and told her he was going to the Merriman Racing Club further down the road “to try his luck there”.

As it was a Saturday morning, there was little traffic in the quiet street. Suddenly, Charmelin became aware of a man wearing a balaclava walking behind her. He was almost upon her. She screamed. The man grabbed her left arm. In his right hand was a knife. He raised his hand high and stabbed her rapidly in the neck and shoulder before taking flight.

Charmelin sagged to the ground in a daze, blood streaming over her chest. A car drove up, its driver hooting repeatedly. He chased after the fleeing attacker with the balaclava.

Meanwhile, a woman who had seen the attack in her rear-view mirror stopped and ran to the woman sitting in the road. She saw a “well-built attacker” running past her car and disappearing around the corner.

The man in the car spotted the fleeing attacker in John Costa Street. He tried bumping the man with his vehicle, but the attacker ran around the car and into the Merriman Racing Club.

The man stopped and called the police on his cellphone. He had been inside the building before and knew there was only one entrance and one exit. While he was waiting for the police outside, the attacker suddenly emerged from the club, but this time wearing different clothes. When the attacker saw the man, he stopped in his tracks and ran back into the club. The man remained standing outside the building.

A clergyman from Bellville who was on his way to the cheese shop with his wife also arrived at the scene where Charmelin had been attacked. A doctor who had just returned from a mountain bike race administered first aid to the injured woman.

The shocked clergyman’s wife crouched down next to the woman and asked her what her name was. Charmelin mumbled an indistinct name but did manage to give a cellphone number, that of her husband, Jerome. The woman called him with the news that his wife had been injured. He was coming at once, Jerome said, but he first wanted to know where his wife was. “The cheese factory shop,” the woman said.

Meanwhile, the doctor realised that Charmelin’s condition was deteriorating. At 12:18, he began heart massage when he failed to detect a pulse. “She’s dying,”’ he grimly told the clergyman and his wife. The couple decided to leave, as their children in the car had started crying.

When a visibly worried Jerome turned up at the scene, he parked his bakkie closer at the doctor’s request, but later departed to fetch his car from the house.

Another doctor arrived and assisted with the heart massage, but Charmelin no longer had a pulse and at 12:35, the first doctor declared her dead.

* * *

Constable Lamleli Zwakala arrived at the scene at about 13:00. He summoned the ambulance, a police photographer and forensic pathology­ services at once. Having received information that the woman’s attacker had run into the Merriman Racing Club, he hurried to the club.

The man who had pursued the attacker introduced himself as Regan Petersen. He was from Bishop Lavis and had been driving to the offices of his employer, Avis, in Stoffel Smit Road that morning when he witnessed the attack.

“When I saw the man, I got the feeling that he wasn’t a skollie or a criminal. He looked very civilised to me,” Petersen later said in a statement.

He followed Zwakala to the building. A blue jacket was found lying on the steps. A pair of black tracksuit pants, a pair of black-and-white Millé takkies and yellow gloves were found discarded in the bathroom, and in the pocket of the jacket was a fruit knife with fresh blood on it. In the bathroom, a window was wide open. The attacker might have escaped through it. About 80m from the scene, in George Blake Street, the police found a black Diesel cap.

In the meantime, an uncle of Charmelin’s, Herold Alfestus, received a call from Jerome at his home in Ida’s Valley: Charmelin had been stabbed in Plankenbrug. Alfestus raced to the scene in his Honda. The police and the ambulance were already on the scene, but Jerome was not there. He arrived 10 minutes later and with a sigh of grief knelt at the blue blanket that covered his wife’s body. He lifted the blanket from her face and kissed her tearfully. A large pool of blood was starting to congeal on the warm tar.

Jerome walked towards Alfestus. As the older man gave Jerome a hug, blood that had been on Jerome ended up on Alfestus’s pink T-shirt. Alfestus noticed in passing that Jerome had injuries to his right elbow but did not initially ask him about it. He took Jerome to the Stellenbosch Mediclinic in his car.

Detective Constable Stephen Adams was on standby duty for the day. He arrived at the scene at 13:24. Zwakala briefed him on the events and told him the deceased’s husband had been there and had taken her handbag with him.

Adams spoke to Alfestus, who had returned from the scene in the meantime. Alfestus told the detective Jerome had phoned him at 12:31, and that Jerome had taken the company bakkie and the handbag to his house in Cloetesville. According to Alfestus, Jerome also said that an unknown woman had called him and informed him of the attack on Charmelin, and that he had not taken his wife to hospital because it was against company policy to transport private persons in their bakkie. That was why he had taken the vehicle home and run back to the scene.

Adams started seeing red flags. If it had been a mugging, why had the attacker not taken the woman’s handbag? Why had her husband not taken her to hospital, and why had he taken the bakkie home and jogged the roughly 4.5km back to the scene? Would a reasonable person do that?

Extract provided by NB Publishers