Mystery still haunts after two decades
IT was mid-1994 when an execution-style double murder in a leafy Port Elizabeth suburb rocked the city. Twenty years on and the bereaved families are no closer to unravelling the mystery. Xolisa Phillip reports
IT HAS been 20 years since friends Felix Coetzee and Scott Ayton were brutally murdered in Walmer, Port Elizabeth.
The riddle of their execution-style killings remains unsolved and two contrasting images of grief have arisen from the tragedy.
Ayton’s 83-year-old mother, Joy, and two of Coetzee’s siblings, Hennie Coetzee and Yvonne Bruhwiler, spoke this week about their yearning for the truth and how the two families had coped since the tragedy.
On May 23 1994, domestic worker Elsie Mati was confronted by a gruesome scene when she arrived for work at the Aytons’ Alcock Road home.
Mati found Coetzee bound, gagged, blindfolded and sitting upright on a chair in the lounge. He had been shot in the back of the head. She found Ayton in a bedroom, where he had been dealt a similar fate.
No arrests were made and to this day no clue has emerged to unlock the mystery that rocked the city.
Bruhwiler and Hennie said they wanted to know why their brother, who was 26, was killed. Both admitted to never having fully recovered from the trauma.
“You have to cope and you have to keep going. But we do not know if the truth will ever emerge,” Bruhwiler said.
Hennie remains angry and strongly believes there was a cover-up, the nature of which he admits to not fully knowing.
“My brother was about to emigrate to the US, where he was to marry and settle down. He sent a letter to his fiancée in which he said: ‘I’ll be seeing you soon if I am still alive.’
“Who says that? I think he stumbled upon something he was not supposed to see and paid the ultimate price,” Hennie said.
He does not believe some random burglar committed the crime. “There was no sign of a forced entry. Scott was killed quickly, but my brother was severely tortured for two hours before he was shot.”
Joy, who moved from her Walmer home six years ago, said: “John [Ayton’s late father] and I voted [in South Africa’s first democratic elections] then flew to Israel.”
The couple were on the island of Rhodes, Greece, at the time.
“I would not wish that shock on anyone. But so many South African families suffered that shock. At least this [the shooting] happened in my home,” Joy said.
She lost her husband two months later. But despite both tragedies, the sprightly octogenarian remains upbeat and steadfast in her faith in God.
“I am happy. God has been good and vengeance is his. He has given me strength to cope and I have moved on with my life.”
She remembers her son, who was 25 when his life was cut short, as being an ordinary, happy-go-lucky and straightforward guy who lived downstairs in his parents’ home.
Ayton was the youngest of three children. His sisters, Janine and Michelle, live in Australia and visit their mom every 18 months.
Joy admits to yearning for the truth but says this is not an all-consuming desire. “But I am not sure if I am prepared for the pain that would come with it,” she said. Her days are filled with prayer meetings, Bible studies, beach walks and swims.