Son who left ‘waterfall of blood’ guilty
A student has been convicted of murdering his wealthy parents and brother with an axe at their home in South Africa in an attack so ferocious that blood ‘‘ran like a waterfall down the stairs’’, according to one paramedic.
Henri van Breda, 23, was also found guilty of attempting to murder his 16-year-old sister Marli, who survived having her jugular vein severed during a desperate struggle that she is now unable to remember.
Van Breda faces at least 25 years in jail for the murder of his father, Martin Van Breda, 54, his mother, Theresa, 55, and brother, Rudi, 22, at their home on a fortified estate in the winelands outside Cape Town.
Van Breda also now loses his share in the family’s multimillion-dollar fortune amassed from property investments in Australia and South Africa.
Van Breda denied all the charges, claiming that he had watched helplessly as an intruder wearing a mask and gloves attacked his family in January 2015. He said that he had fought off the killer and wrestled the weapon out of his hands before chasing him from the house.
Judge Siraj Desai spent a day reading his 80-page judgment after a 63-day trial broadcast live from the Western Cape high court in Cape Town.
He told the court that ‘‘as a family man myself’’ it was difficult for him to comprehend the ferocity of the killings and the ‘‘peculiar lack of empathy’’ that had been shown by Van Breda.
Instead of shouting for help in the narrow street where the family lived or phoning the estate’s security guards, he sat in the kitchen smoking cigarettes and made a failed call to his girlfriend, the court was told. He waited more than four hours before raising the alarm, all the while listening to the desperate ‘‘gurgling and thrashing’’ of his dying family.
The operator told the trial that when Van Breda finally did contact the emergency services he sounded so matter of fact as he reported the killings that she initially thought the call was a prank.
Judge Desai said that the former physics student ‘‘was fully conscious and responsible for his actions’’ when he took an axe and rained blows down his parents and siblings, deliberately targeting their heads so as to cause maximum injury.
Van Breda was also found guilty of having tampered with the crime scene at the De Zalze security estate, in Stellenbosch, in an attempt to cover his tracks.