Grim story updated as film is released

It’s been 11 years since Ellen Pakkies killed her tik-addict son Abie in their home in Lavender Hill on the Cape Flats. It’s a shocking story, which culminated when Pakkies took a rope, twisted it around his neck and strangled him.

Since then, there has been a book, a play and now a movie which all try to answer the question: what drives a mother to murder her child?

The book by Sylvia Walker, Dealing in Death, was first released in 2010 and now has been updated and republished, neatly coinciding with the release of the film, The Ellen Pakkies Story.

However, the book and film are separate and the one is not based on the other, except insofar as they both centre on the true story of the Pakkies family.

The film has already been critically acclaimed and seems to have had a great deal of input from Pakkies, but unfortunately the book does not, and this is immediately obvious to the reader.

Although Walker tries to explain this in her preface, saying that Pakkies originally had dreamt of having her life story published and asked Walker to write it before changing her mind – it is still a loss.

Despite several in-depth interviews with Walker, and her obvious knowledge of the family and situation, the narrator’s voice is no substitute for Pakkies’ own words.

It makes sense then that this updated version of Dealing in Death, although using Abie’s death as the trigger, takes a more general look at a community’s struggle with drugs and tik in particular. The story still grips the imagination and what is sobering is that little has changed in the past 11 years.

You also don’t need to visit the Cape Flats to know the horrors brought by drug abuse.

Only last week, the national crime statistics highlighted Port Elizabeth’s Bethelsdorp and Gelvandale police precincts as among the top 30 most dangerous in SA.

The Bethelsdorp community policing forum, in particular, said gangsterism and drug abuse was so bad that youngsters in the neighbourhood would steal household items from their parents to sell to feed their drug habits.

Dealing in Death outlines how Pakkies – and others in her area – lived with this for years. It also highlights her own background of physical and sexual abuse and poverty, and how her sad history may have made her vulnerable to snapping under pressure.

It also looks at the global and local drugs culture, and shortage of safety nets for families living with an addict, giving the story a broader context.

● Dealing in Death by Sylvia Walker is published by Zebra Press. It retails for around R220.