Aussie axe attack

What really made former Australian resident Henri van Breda slaughter his mum, dad and brother in a frenzied attack?

Henri van Breda cut a lonely figure standing emotionless in a South African court last week, as the judge found him guilty of brutally murdering three family members in a savage attack that also left his sister fighting for life.

But it was back in the quiet, picturesque winegrowing region of Stellenbosch, just 50km from Cape Town’s High Court, that a close-knit community of friends and supporters of the van Breda family heaved a resounding sigh of relief, knowing the cold-blooded monster who had lived among them will finally stay behind bars.

“It’s unimaginable it happened right here, just up the road – we now have peace of mind he’s not ever going to terrorise anyone again. He must pay for tearing apart one of the most beautiful families in our community,” a family friend told Woman’s Day.

“We don’t want to be named for fear of our own lives.

“Henri has gathered quite a following of supporters and some pretty questionable characters since his arrest.”

On January 27, 2015, at the family’s luxury home on the exclusive De Zalze golf estate, in what is believed to have been an alcohol and drugfuelled frenzy, the then 20-year-old brutally took an axe to all four members of his family – mum Teresa, 55, dad Martin, 54, brother Rudi, 22, and 16-year-old sister Marli.

HIS STORY

As his family lay dying, he smoked three cigarettes, inflicted a number of injuries on himself and called his girlfriend. Two hours later, he got around to calling police – but his story of an axe-wielding, balaclava-wearing intruder was never going to stand up in a court of law.

Marli, now 19, was unable to testify during the gripping 66-day trial due to the severity of her injuries, which left her with a condition known as retrograde amnesia – meaning she has no memories of the attack that massacred her family and likely never will.

‘Henri had this strange swagger like he was better than everyone’

“Marli was still alive – she lay fighting for her life, bleeding profusely, while he must’ve sat amongst them all working out what his next move was going to be. It’s unimaginable, the lack of any remorse,” says the friend.

“In many ways it’s best Marli doesn’t ever remember anything. Rather, she can remember her beautiful mum and dad, and biggest and kindest brother Rudi for what they were – loving souls who would be so proud of their little girl, and saddened that a son bearing their name could turn out to be such a monster.”

The van Breda family left South Africa back in 2005, emigrating to Australia where they lived for about seven years in Perth, where Henri attended private boys’ school Scotch College. They then moved to Buderim on the Sunshine Coast, before relocating back to their native land in 2014.

‘OFF THE RAILS’

That decision, according to friends, was the catalyst for their troubled middle child – who stood to inherit $21.2 million if he was the sole survivor – to go “off the rails”.

“Henri was the kid with the chip on his shoulder, and he had this strange swagger like he was better than everyone,” the friend says.

“He always boasted about his parents’ wealth. He went from school to school, and job to job.

“He spent time in drug rehab and we suspect he had discovered ‘tik’ – a methamphetamine dangerously similar to ice.”

And as the world awaits sentencing – he’s due back in court on June 5 – Henri’s girlfriend Danielle Janse van Rensburg, 22, has pledged to love and support her man to the end, refusing to believe he could have committed such a heinous crime.