A month after moving into their dream home in Waterfall, Samantha Oosthuizen and her two kids have starting packing their things.
|||Durban - A month after moving into their dream home in Waterfall, Samantha Oosthuizen and her two children have starting packing their belongings with heavy hearts and traumatic memories of her husband and their father lying in a pool of blood.
Jacques, 35, who died of a fatal heart attack three days after he was stabbed and shot in a robbery at his home, had been thrilled about the move to Durban, his wife said on Wednesday.
“Jacques loved the sea. We were so excited to move from Newcastle, a small town, to what we felt was the place to be,” said Oosthuizen.
“We were pressed for time to find a house because Jacques was transferred to Durban for work.
“Whenever I did a search on the property websites, this house always came up. I felt this was meant to be.”
The family’s vision of a new, happy chapter was shattered when they became another statistic in the rising crime levels in the Highway suburbs.
They were attacked in their home last Thursday night, a day after police launched a special task team to get to grips with violent crime in the area.
Two of three suspects were arrested hours after the incident and appeared in the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court on Monday on murder and house robbery charges.
They were expected to apply for bail next week. Police spokesman, Captain Thulani Zwane, said they were still searching for the third suspect.
Oosthuizen said one of the three men had worked on their property. She said she did not recognise him at first and wondered why he kept asking her, during the robbery, if she knew him.
“He also told my daughter and husband not to look at him. I’m not good at remembering faces, but this time I did, and I recognised him when the police showed me a photograph of him,” she said.
Oosthuizen and her children, Claudia, 15, and Storm, 10, have been staying with relatives since the attack and only returned to the house to fetch some belongings.
The house had been put up for sale and a security guard had been posted there for the past two days.
Fighting back tears, Oosthuizen said she did not want to uproot her children again.
“I don’t want to make any rash decisions about our future as I’m still emotional. The children are happy at their school and I don’t want to make a big move. That would be too traumatic for them,” she said. “At the end of the year, we’ll decide about our move forward.”
Jacques’s mother, who did not want to be named, described her only son as a devoted family man who loved the sea and fishing.
“He was a deeply religious man,” she said.
“Jacques and Storm were supposed to have gone on a church father-son camp last Friday.
“It was Claudia’s birthday on Saturday and we were all going to celebrate together as a family on Sunday.”
She added that the family were afraid to return to the house and their church congregation had stepped in to help clean it - particularly the blood in the bedroom - before the family returned to fetch a few things.
Recalling their ordeal, Oosthuizen said the men had broken into their home while they were asleep.
A lamp had fallen in her bedroom and she said she woke to see her husband lying in a pool of blood and a man standing over him with a gun.
The children were woken up by the robbers and taken into their parents’ bedroom.
Oosthuizen said the robbers calmly and patiently went through their belongings while the family begged for their lives.
“They asked for jewellery, money, keys to our vehicles and about anti-hijacking on them. One of the men asked my son which was the key to the canopy of our bakkie,” she said.
“We were terrified. I asked if I could take my husband to the hospital and asked for a set of car keys and a remote so that we could leave. I eventually offered to help them pack so that we could get out.
“They packed everything into the bakkie and drove off. I think the anti-hijack kicked in a few kilometres down the road and I saw them get out of the bakkie as I was driving towards them. I was afraid they’d shoot at us so I sped past them to get to the hospital.”
Oosthuizen said she had been brave at first, but recently confided to a relative that she wished she would wake up from “this bad dream”.
The family were still battling to sleep and were nervous about any noise they heard at night.
On Wednesday, Community Safety and Liaison MEC, Willies Mchunu, and acting premier, Senzo Mchunu, with reporters, visited the family.
“I don’t mind speaking to the media as long as it means I can save at least one family,” Oosthuizen said.
She said she was grateful for the visit by the politicians.
The acting premier said the government condemned all acts of violence against defenceless families.
He commended the police for their swift work and said they would closely follow the progress of the case in court.
“These attackers need to rot and die,” he said.
Calling on the community to rally together against crime, he said: “We’ve taken the decision to act on four major issues of concern - murder, drugs, rape and teen pregnancy.”
Mchunu said the spike in crime in the Upper Highway area had taken his ministry and department by surprise
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noelene.barbeau@inl.co.za
Daily News