Viana Family Murdered, Gang Raped & Tortured by their Employees

The murders so brutal they shocked even South Africa: Couple shot dead, then son aged 12 is drowned in scalding bath

Sobbing child was tied up and gagged before being murdered in bath 'because he could identify them' | The three men assaulted the father with a golf club and blade before shooting both adults | Family dog had stomach cut open | Trio worked for the family and said killings were revenge for being badly treated

By Dan Newling | DailyMail.UK | PUBLISHED: 09:07 GMT, 26 July 2012 | UPDATED: 00:52 GMT, 27 July 2012

Even in a country that sees 44 murders a day, the case has left the public horrified.

A gang of robbers gunned down a father, raped and murdered his wife.

Then, in a final act of sickening brutality, they drowned the couple’s 12-year-old son in scalding bath water.

Amaro Viana was murdered to prevent him from identifying the three housebreakers who carried out the raid in suburban South Africa.

The gang included the family’s gardener and the son of a domestic servant.

It was claimed they were motivated by the way they had been treated by the Viana family.

Appearing in court yesterday, the gardener Patrick Radebe, 24, confessed to being part of the gang which broke into their home in October last year.

Employee Attacks [4]: Brink Botha, Brits farmer murdered

[SA Employee Attacks] [SA Farm Attacks]
[Farm Murders] [SA Farm Attack Report]

Brits Farmer, Brink Botha, 53, murdered & robbed by two farmworkers, who shot him twice; after having poisoned 8 of their dogs.


Life for HIV-positive farm killers

2011-03-12 09:31
CityPress

Thomas Chauke (left) and Zondi Nkuna in High Court Pretoria prior to being sentenced to life for murder of Brink Brits. Photo: Alet Pretorius

Pretoria – Two men who killed a Brits, North West, farmer were sentenced to life imprisonment by the Pretoria High Court yesterday, despite being HIV-positive.

Judge Peter Mabuse said the fact that Thomas Chauke (30), a Mozambican, and Zondi Nkuna (31) of Soshanguve were both HIV-positive was not a compelling reason to deviate from the prescribed life sentence.

The two were last year convicted of murdering Brits farmer Brink Botha and robbing him and his wife Christelle of cellphones, R200 and their bakkie.

Both were also convicted of animal cruelty after poisoning eight of the couple’s Boerboel dogs. One died at the scene and two had to be hospitalised.

Police shot and killed a third suspect.

The two accused were part of a gang who entered the house by smashing a bedroom window. When Botha charged at them they shot him in the chest.

One of the robbers grabbed his wife, who had fled to the study, and demanded money.

She and her daughter were tied up before the robbers left. They found her husband dead in a pool of blood.

Employee Attacks [Pt3] : Murdered, Tortured, Robbed or Raped by their Employees

POTGIETERS: Attie (40), Wilna (36), Willemientjie (3); Lindley Farm, OFS; 01 December 2010

POTGIETER: Attie, beaten to death with panga and garden fork; Wilna & Willemien executed with bullets to the back of the head; by 6 attackers, 3 of them farm workers.

2010-12-02 23:10
Jana van der Merwe en MJ Lourens, Beeld

Lindley, OFS: Farm attackers took a three year old little girl to an outside room where they shot her in cold blood -- presumably for fear she would identify them.

They then took her little corpse -- still with a pink ribbon in her red hair -- and dumped it next to the corpse of her mother in the main bedroom of the farm.

As far as can be deduced, both small Willemien Potgieter and her mother, Wilna (36) were executed in bullets to the back of the head.

Willemientjie's father, Mr. Attie Potgieter (40) corpse was found outside in the garden next to a hedge, near the backdoor of the house.

It is presumed he was attacked there with a sharp object, presumably a panga to the back of his head, and he was presumably also stabbed with a garden fork.

When the murderers left they wrote the following message in Sotho on a carton box, and stuck it on the gate of the farm Twee-fontein: “We murdered them. We will be back.”

Three farm workers were arrested yesterday for the three murders, and later in the day two more, including a 17-year old, was arrested in the township. Another accused is being sought.

Five of the accused: L-R: Tshololo Tello Mischach Letala (18), Tapa Mopontola Mofokeng (23), Paulus Samson Vusimuzi Khumalo (22), Telleko Sex Seekoei (19) en Stemmer Boy Mofokeng (22). The sixth accused is under aged. Khumalo and the two Mofokengs were farmworkers on Tweefontein.

The Potgieter family would have celebrated their 11th wedding anniversary this week. Allegedly Mr. Potgieter withdrew R7,000 cash yesterday to pay workers wages.

Allegedly the three accused who live in the townships, paid the farm workers each approximately R500 for information on the families movements.

» » » » [Beeld: 'We Will be Back']
» » [Rapport: Murdered little girl wanted to become a singer]
» » [Beeld: Willemientjie - Accused remain behind bars]
» » [Beeld: It was a race crime]
» » [IOL: Potgieter suspects denied bail]
» » [IOL: Potgieter family to be buried]

Employee Attacks [Pt2] : Murdered, Tortured, Robbed or Raped by their Employees

OLIVIER: Lauren, 28, Sunningdale, KZN; 06 Sept 2007

Lauren Olivier, 28, was left tied up and gagged while dying with 40 wounds after she had called him 'a kaffir', claims gardener Makhela Johnson Thabethe in a signed confession... he'd only worked there a month...

Censorbugbear & ILuvSA

26-Oct-2008 DURBAN HIGH COURT. South Africa. The man who had killed Sunningdale KZN mom Lauren Olivier in her luxury home on Sept 6 last year, confessed to his crime before a Durban High Court judge on Monday - but while the prosecutor accepted his guilty plea, she also warned the judge that it was not necessarily the whole truth.

"We cannot gainsay his version," state advocate Yasmin Vahed said of Makhele Johnson Thabethe's written plea... The judge agreed, sentencing the gardener to 30 years in prison.

According to the forensic report in the court documents, Mrs Olivier had suffered more than 40 puncture and stab wounds - not 19 as initially reported. The ferocity with which Mrs Olivier had been killed had sent shockwaves through the close-knit Sunningdale community. She was bludgeoned and stabbed while the young mom, still frail from childbirth, was also holding her baby, Jack.

The gardener claimed that she'd called him a kaffir and had refused to pay his day's wages... so he'd beat her with a monkey wrench, then stabbed her repeatedly, tied her up and gagged her to stop her from raising the alarm - and then just climbed out of a window and left.

Thabethe, pictured above, this week confessed to bludgeoning and stabbing the frail young mom but also wrote in his confession that he 'had left her baby unharmed'.

He then stole a mere R70 ($6,50), her cellphone and MP3 player and went into hiding for over a year. The police investigating team however regularly conducted interviews with the suspect’s family and never gave up trying to find him.

Eventually, they had found the suspect hiding inside his family's house. He said in his confession however that he'd decided to go home and turn himself in because he felt guilty.

The chairman of the Durban north and Umhlanga community policing forum, Haden Searles, said Mrs Olivier’s widower Tony was “pleased” with the arrest. “He is happy about the arrest but it has opened up a lot of hurt and bad memories for him,' said Searles.

Her father Lindsay Shankland said they'd had only one question for her killer: Why? "We have battled with this so much, and all we want to know is why he did it," Olivier's father Lindsay Shankland said. And while the breakthrough in her murder 'would help with the healing process, it would in no way provide closure. An empty feeling would be with us; my wife and my two other children forever ,' her father told the news media.

Employee Attacks [Pt1] : Murdered, Tortured, Robbed or Raped by their Employees

TERREBLANCHE: Eugene, 69, leader of AWB on his farm Witrandjiesfontein, April 2010.

Tortured, beaten and finally murdered by two employees, Zimbabwean Chris Mahlangu, 28, and a 15 year old over an alleged wage dispute.

IOL & Rapport

Chris Mahlangu, 28, and his 15-year-old co-accused allegedly murdered the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging leader in April at his farmhouse.

Mahlangu was released in July on R5 000 bail but re-arrested in October after a Pretoria High Court judge said the magistrate in Ventersdorp had made “incomprehensive findings” in his granting of bail.

The judge found that Mahlangu was a flight risk.

At a previous appearance, the court heard that Terre'Blanche carried a panga with him everywhere he went and he frequently took off his underpants because of the heat.

Shortly after the murder there was speculation, fuelled by reports of Terre'Blanche being found dead with his pants down, and that he had attempted to sexually assault his killers.

It was revealed during the bail application that the trio had been consuming alcohol before the incident and were in a “jovial” mood.

The motive for the crime was believed to be over a wage dispute and missing cattle.

The court heard that Terre'Blanche had been struck with such force that his jaw was broken and a bone had pierced his tongue.