Henri’s ‘affection’ for mother, his ‘nurturer’, did not save her

● In all the noise around Henri van Breda’s three life sentences for murdering his parents and brother, heartbreaking facts emerged this week about his close relationship with his mother, Teresa.

Senior state prosecutor Susan Galloway said in the High Court in Cape Town: “One can only imagine what went through her [Teresa’s] mind when she must have realised shortly before being attacked that the attacker was her own son who she raised and loved.”

Teresa van Breda had been a “loving mother who cared for her family and wanted the best for them”, Galloway said.

A report by social worker Arina Smit of the National Institute for Crime Prevention and Reintegration of Offenders, which was quoted heavily by the defence in court, revealed the close emotional ties between mother and son.

Henri’s father, Martin, had difficulty expressing emotions and their relationship was more intellectual, said Smit. Teresa, on the other hand, “was more the nurturer and he connected with her on an emotional level”.

She was, in fact, his “primary attachment figure”, which was “the first and most important person that an infant bonds with. It is from this figure that the child learns how to navigate their own relationships.”

For the defence, this tight bond between mother and son proved that he would have had no motive to kill her.

For the state, the poignancy of the relationship increased the sense of “innate cruelty” and “savagery” of which Judge Siraj Desai spoke in his sentencing on Thursday.

It also seems as if Henri murdered his mother at a time when she was going through a difficult patch in her marriage. Smit said that after the murders, relatives told Henri that his mother had appeared “unhappy

Happy Mother’s

Day. She really was a lovely woman. I can’t even explain how nice she was to me!

Marli van Breda

In an Instagram post in 2015 with a picture of her mother and her aunt, Teresa’s sister Narita du Toit

in the relationship”.

It seems unlikely, however, that she would have left her husband.

Speaking about the family’s return to South Africa after several years in Australia, Galloway told the court: “Her love for her family was so deeply rooted that the family returned to South Africa because she wanted to be closer to them.”

Details of Teresa’s last few moments alive stand in chilling contrast to the love Henri says existed between them.

He had already attacked his sleeping brother, Rudi, when Martin came to Rudi’s aid and was slaughtered too. Next, Teresa emerged from the bedroom in her summer pyjamas.

Hands that raised her killer

Forensic pathologist Daphne Anthony testified that she had “faced her attacker headon” and “raised her hand with her palm facing outwards to protect herself”.

They were the same hands that had raised her killer, nurturing him from birth to the age of 20.

Teresa then “fell on her face, bruising her ribs, before sustaining more severe injuries from further blows”, said Anthony, pointing out that the blows were so hard that fragments of bone and brain tissue protruded from head wounds “and could be seen by the naked eye”.

When these images were presented in court, Henri asked to sit further back than normal in the courtroom.

On June 27, Henri’s legal team will seek leave to appeal against his conviction and sentence — three life sentences for murder, one 15-year sentence for the attempt on his sister Marli’s life, and 12 months for obstructing the course of justice.

Advocate Louise Buikman, the court-appointed curator for Marli, now 19, will be in the high court tomorrow to apply for the extension of her curatorship.