Murdered man ‘never hurt a fly’
“HE WAS my baby, he would never harm a fly. I just wish I could get him back.”
As a Phoenix mother battles to deal with the loss of her son, two men have appeared in court in connection with his murder.
Donovan Naicker, 37, was hit with a brick across his head, stoned and stabbed on Saturday night – all because he had tried to stop an argument involving men he did not know.
Naicker’s body was found on an embankment a few hundred metres from his Cranebridge Close home, where he lived with his mother, Priscilla.
On Tuesday morning, hundreds of family, friends and community members gathered at Naicker’s home to pay their last respects to a man they all described as a good Samaritan.
Naicker, who worked in the construction industry, had been sitting outside his home on Saturday night when a friend came running to him for help.
An argument had allegedly ensued between the friend’s uncle and a group of men near a local pub. Naicker attempted to intervene but was attacked.
On Monday, Naicker’s griefstricken younger sister Natasha Naidoo could not hold back tears as she told of their last moments together. “We had spent the day together and had discussed what we would do for his birthday, which would have been on March 26. I told him we would have a braai and he said he wanted a character cake, which I had made for him every year.
“He also wanted a pair of Timberland boots, which I promised I would buy. I never thought that would be the last conversation we would ever have.”
Natasha added: “We were very close, he was always so playful, he loved his family and his three children were his everything.
“He was loved by everyone. People have said they would tell him they needed help, and he would find some sort of way to assist them, he was always going the extra mile. We did not know him to be someone with enemies; he was always respectable and humble, with a heart of gold.”
She recalled their last Christmas family gathering when he asked her for some chicken and vegetables. “I asked him where he was taking it, and he said ‘Sis, some families don’t have food’. He wanted to give the food for a family to cook on that day. I remember his words so clearly: ‘we have been blessed, let’s bless someone else’; that was his nature. All we want now is for justice to prevail. People cannot get away for taking another man’s life so easily.”
SAPS spokesperson Captain Nqobile Gwala said two men, Karl Pretorius, 24, and Floyd Reddy, 28, were arrested on Saturday and appeared in the Verulam Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
They were charged with murder and remanded in police custody.