LADANNA, POLOKWANE - The sight of the 76-year-old woman’s battered face tells its own story as it peers around her 81-year-old husband who tremblingly tries to unlock the gate for me to enter their home.
Less than a week ago this frail and elderly couple was returning home from doing their weekly fruit, veg, bread and milk run in the city. They live at the end of a quiet street and across the road there is nothing but veld.
*Ms Jane Smith and her husband, John, were unloading their vehicle in their driveway next to their house when Mr Smith decided he had to go to the bathroom quickly. The couple’s old Labrador wagged its tail from behind the fenced-off backyard while their little Maltese-cross ran around them panting happily at their return. Both the gates to their yard were closed and locked.
Ms Smith returned alone to the vehicle to collect the bag of oranges that was still on the backseat when the huge figure of a man materialised before her. “I had no chance to do anything before he roughly shoved his gigantic paw of a hand over my mouth, at the same time showing me with a finger to his lips to be quiet.” He hit the Labrador on the head with a metal object and kicked out at the Maltese viciously. Then he grabbed her around the throat tightly and dragged her into her home to the main bedroom where he threw her against the wall just beneath the bedroom window. She noticed he had some kind of sharp object in his hand. “I lost my balance and could hear the curtain lace ripping as it tore against my weight. I shouted to my husband to lock himself in the bathroom but it was too late and I heard him opening the bathroom door.”
Attacker
Her attacker grabbed a purse and her husband’s watch that was on the bedside table… and then he turned his full attention back to her. “He grabbed me around the neck again and threw me on the bed. He ripped my clothes open as if they were made of paper. And then he raped me.
“I lost consciousness somewhere along the line, coming to when I heard my husband calling out to me from somewhere else in the house. His voice was muffled.”
Mr Smith tells his side of the story in less words than his wife. “When I came out of the bathroom, I came face to face with the intruder. He threw one of our crocheted blankets over my head, twisting it tightly around my neck. Then he dragged me to the spare room, throwing me on the bed and tying my hands together with cable ties. Then he left the room. I kept calling to my wife but she did not answer. I was helpless and at the intruder’s mercy.”
Throughout this elderly couple’s ordeal, their attacker never once uttered a single word.
Ms Smith says when she came to, the man was gone. “I tried to get off the bed and walk to the phone in the lounge but my legs gave way under me. I was numb from the waist down. I crawled to the phone and called a friend who lives nearby for help. Then I made my way to where my husband lay.” She cut the cable ties with some sewing scissors. “Then I staggered back to the telephone and called our sector manager, Insp Joe Shingange. I just kept repeating our address to him over and over again.” Her friend had also summoned the police immediately and hastily made her way to the Smith’s home.
Police response
The Smiths say the police’s response was quick and a large number of police vehicles responded but the suspect had already fled into the veld across the road. In the past the veld used to be mown short by the municipality but it has been months since this has been done, making the long grass an ideal place for criminals to hide. The Smiths have lived in their home for 40 years and only recently decided to put it up for sale. No arrests have been made as yet and anyone with information can contact the nearest police station or Shingange on 082 962 8160.
The elderly couple is clearly still in shock following their horrifying, inhuman ordeal. Ms Smith shakes uncontrollably at times and tears flow unchecked down her cheeks at intervals. But no word of hate or anger is uttered by either of them against the man who committed this terrifyingly cruel deed.
*Not their real names. The couple’s identity has been changed in order to protect them.
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Introduction to story
A sad story but a dramatic introduction. The kind of writing we welcome on MyPolokwane
NicP