British expat was blow-torched by killers
A BRITISH woman has died in South Africa after a horrific attack during which robbers burnt her with a blowtorch before shooting her and stuffing a plastic bag down her throat.
Sue Howarth, 64, and her husband Robert Lynn, 66, were asleep when they were attacked in their farmhouse near the village of Dullstroom at around 3am on Sunday, said Johan Pieterse, manager of the security company that found the couple.
“The attackers broke into the house through a window and demanded cash,” he told The Daily Telegraph. “There was no money in the house so they used a blow-torch on them.
“Mr Lynn was stabbed in his stom- ach, hands and neck. Mrs Howarth was burned on her face.”
The attackers forced the couple into their pick-up truck before driving them away from the farm.
Mr Lynn was shot in the neck and dumped in the bush with a black plastic bag tied over his head.
When the attackers drove off, he stumbled towards the road between the small towns of between Belfast and Stoffberg, where he found Mrs Howarth, unconscious with a bag shoved down her throat.
A passer-by noticed the couple and stopped to help. A security officer arrived soon after and cut the bag from Mrs Howarth’s head.
The couple were taken to a hospital in the town of Middelburg. Mrs Howarth had multiple skull fractures. Both victims had burn wounds.
Mrs Howarth, who was known as “the English girl” by her friends in Dullstroom never regained consciousness. Her life support was switched off on Tuesday.
Mr Lynn was released from hospital on Wednesday. Police found the couple’s pickup truck abandoned in front of a tavern in Middelburg on Tuesday morning.
Farmers in the area have rallied around Mr Lynn.
Mr Pieterse said the attack on the couple was one of the worst he had experienced in his career in the security industry. “I was fine until I went to see Robert last night,” he said.
“What I saw is not normal … The way the were tortured, it’s not human. When I spoke to Robert, it tore me apart. I don’t know how he is coping.”
A spokesman said detectives were expecting to make arrests “in the coming hours”.
Mrs Howarth was well known at sheepdog trials in the area. She kept three rescue Border Collies on her farm. A family friend, Vincent Taylor, offered a £1,200 reward for information leading to arrests.
The attack comes barely a week after British grandparents Roger and Christine Solik – who moved from Wales to South Africa in 1981 – were killed in a robbery at their countryside estate in the KwaZulu-Natal province.
Police are still hunting for the killers who broke into the couple’s house before tying them up and dumping them in a river.
Mrs Solik, 57, was found dead 45 miles from her home and the body of her Parkinson’s sufferer husband, 66, discovered the next day.
Last week Monday, a family of four was shot and killed on their farm around two hours’ drive south of where Mrs Howarth was attacked.