When a ‘perfect dad’ goes very bad

TO the outside world, Simon Kekana seemed like the perfect dad.

A stay-at-home parent, he made sure his four boys were up and ready for school each day, just as, on Sundays, he always had them ready for church.

But last Sunday morning there could only have been fear and horror as their “nice father” chased them around their home.

Kekana is alleged to have killed his children one by one by slitting their throats. He left his youngest, Lekgoledi, 4, for last — and only after he put the boy on the phone to his mother to tell her: “My brothers are all bleeding.”

By the time the police arrived at the family’s home in Magatle, a small village south of Polokwane, Lekgoledi and his brothers, Bokang, 6, Keneilwe, 10, and Hlologelo, 13, were dead.

Kekana was found in a critical condition after an apparent failed suicide bid.

This horrific family killing has plunged the children’s mother, Lorraine, into a nightmare of grief.

“The people in the community always used to say he was such a good father. He looked after the kids while his wife was living and working in Pretoria,” said Lorraine’s brother, Hendrik Thamaga.

“We always thought they were a happy family. If you are married you will fight, but no one knew it would be this bad.”

Lorraine’s sister, Precious Tladi, 37, believes her sister has gone through hell at the hands of her allegedly “abusive” husband. “She was scared of this man.” Lorraine tried to get his family to intervene, but nothing came of that, she said.

“He tried to kill her in July. One night he got up to fetch an axe and when he came back to hit her, she woke up. She was hit on the hand as she tried to stop him,” said Tladi. Her sister did not report this incident to the police; instead the local chief was called to mediate.

Professor Gertie Pretorius said a killing like that of the Kekana boys was probably driven by the desire to exact “absolute revenge” on the mother.

Pretorius, a clinical psychologist in private practice and a visiting professor at the University of Johannesburg, said: “For the man there is probably a sense that he has no other outcome. This is an attempt to say, ‘Look what you have done.’

“He knows she will never be able to get over something like VICTIMS: Four-year-old Lekgoledi Kekana’s father forced him to phone his mother before he allegedly killed him. By then his brothers — from top to bottom — Bokang, 6, Keneilwe, 10, and Hlologelo, 13, had already had their throats slit this and live with it. The irony is now he will have to live with it himself.”

Kekana, under police guard in hospital, is expected to be formally charged with four counts of murder upon his discharge.

Pretorius said it was unlikely that the alleged murder “just happened”. “There would have been an escalation of conflict between the partners. I don’t know the specifics of the case, but there must have been some problems — whether it was financial, another person in the relationship, or one of them trying to end the relationship.”

Lisa Vetten, a researcher at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research, said: “When men harm the children, it’s often the nastiest or most malicious thing they can think about to harm the mother. It’s such a profound and extraordinary loss. The intention isn’t necessarily to harm the children per se, it is rather to do something that will truly hurt that woman. It is an attempt to abuse and harm the mother without physically harming her.”