Van Breda aunt: Henri is innocent
Leenta Nel, sister of the late Teresa van Breda, talks to YOU about her belief in her nephew Henri van Breda’s version of events
COULD my sister have raised a killer? Of course this thought has crossed her mind, she says – how could it not have? “Yes, I have wondered: could it be a possibility?” It’s a question many people want an answer to – an answer they’ll get once the court case involving Henri van Breda (22) finally comes to an end.
But for this woman, there’s a lot more at stake than curiosity and intrigue: the woman murdered alongside her husband and son that day was her sister.
Leenta Nel (63) now lives in Canada but she’s in South Africa for a few weeks to attend her nephew’s trial. The state alleges Henri axed his parents, Martin (54) and Teresa (55), and his brother, Rudi (22), to death and tried to kill his younger sister, Marli (then 16).
Since she arrived she’s often been told she looks and sounds like Teresa and it moves her every time she hears it. She misses her gentle-natured, cheerful younger sister more than words can express, she says over a cup of coffee at the V&A Waterfront after spending the day in court.
There’s something she wants to get off her chest straight away, she says suddenly.
“Although I may wonder if Henri could be responsible for murdering my sister as well as his dad and brother, I do know the person who did that definitely wasn’t the Henri I know.
“If it was him, something must have happened in his brain that night to make him act totally differently. Because the next morning, when my brother André [du Toit] saw Henri, he was his normal self. He was the Henri we’ve all known since he was little.”
Leenta, a theatre sister, and her husband, Chris, an IT manager, have lived in
Victoria, Canada, for the past 20 years. The couple have two grown-up daughters – Rika, who’s studying in Nashville in the USA, and Susanne, a teacher in Victoria. Leenta and her family have followed her nephew’s trial closely via the internet.
Every time Henri enters the dock at the high court in Cape Town, Leenta’s alarm clock rings on her bedside table. Canada is nine hours behind South Africa and Leenta plans her day so she doesn’t miss a moment of the sensational family-murder trial.
The Henri standing trial is incongruous to the little boy she used to know. “He was so soft-natured he immediately touched your heart,” Leenta says.
“The Henri I knew wasn’t capable of murdering his family.”
LEENTA sat in the upstairs gallery of the high court, looking down on her nephew in the dock. Henri doesn’t usually want family members in court, she says. “But I decided to go anyway and when he walked in he looked up towards me. I couldn’t help raising my hand in a little wave and he nodded in my direction. It was quite a touching moment.”
Leenta is accompanied by a friend from university, Jaap Rabie, who’s writing a book on the De Zalze murders titled The De Zalze Murders: The Story behind the Story.
Leenta is helping him to write the book for several reasons – among others because she had a dream in which Teresa said she’d like to document her life. The book, which Jaap claims has a lot of exclusive information about the family and the murders, is expected to be released once Judge Siraj Desai has delivered his verdict.
When we ask Leenta about the day her sister was murdered, pain is still evident in her voice.
Her phone rang at 2am that day, she recalls. A family member from South Africa was on the line with news that beggared belief.
“She told me that Teresa, Martin and Rudi were dead.
“I heard her saying Marli was in hospital. First I thought there’d been a car accident but then she said they’d been murdered . . . It was terrible news,” Leenta says, taking a sip of water.
She went into shock. And Henri? she asked. Where was Henri? Why had no one said anything about him?
“Henri was also in the attack,” the relative said.
“Whether he did it or whether there were other attackers – he needs help and support,” Leenta tells us now.
The next day she called her brother André, who’s Henri and Marli’s guardian.
“What was the first thing Henri said to you?” Leenta asked him.
And then she asked the question anyone with knowledge of the case would repeat over and over: what exactly happened?
“Henri told my brother there were men wearing balaclavas in the house. They were very angry and attacked the family,” Grandma Rika du Toit with Henri in 2014. Henri has always had a soft spot for his grandmother, who also believes he’s innocent. Leenta says.
“You wouldn’t think up that kind of thing before the time,” she says, almost as if she’s thinking out loud.
The Du Toits, Teresa’s side of the family, immediately closed ranks around Henri.
They decided to protect him by maintaining their silence as far as possible and not disclosing information about the investigation to anyone but family members and close friends of the murder victims.
“Henri stutters. He’s an introvert and very shy and when he doesn’t know someone he stutters. He’s been like that since he was very young. That’s why people thought he was laughing when he called emergency services after the murders – but he wasn’t,” Leenta says.
Henri is doing well under the circumstances, she adds. “Yes, he’s put on quite a bit of weight, but he can’t go jogging like you and me because he’s recognised wherever he goes.
“He can’t go to the shops for fresh vegetables or fruit. So for the moment it’s takeaway meals for him.”
Leenta rejects rumours that Henri was jealous of Rudi and there was a major family row before all hell broke loose under the Van Breda roof.
It’s nonsense, she says. Judging from what Teresa often told her on the phone, there wasn’t any rivalry between the brothers – except once when they argued about whose beard was longer, and Henri won.
“Rudi would’ve flown back to Australia [where the family used to live] to continue his studies and Martin had booked a diving course for Henri in Mozambique. What I do know is that Henri didn’t want to do that and also wanted to go back to Australia.”
Marli has suffered from retrograde amnesia since the attack and still can’t remember anything about that night, Leenta confirms.
“Henri regularly asks how his little sister is doing.”
SHE recalls a particular day in 2014, which strengthens her belief that the boy she knew couldn’t have slaughtered his family. Her mom, Rika du Toit (now 93), had arrived from Kempton Park to visit the family in Cape Town and had taken a fall.
“She cut her elbow and Teresa asked Henri to help tend to the wound. He wouldn’t because blood made him feel queasy,” Leenta says.
Jaap interjects: would someone who gets queasy about a little blood take an axe and attack a whole family?
“Everybody already thinks he’s guilty. But what if he’s actually innocent? Can you imagine what absolute hell he must be going through?” Leenta says.
“We’re holding our breath for the verdict.”
And she’s hoping beyond hope that this question she’s asked herself over and over – did her sister raise a murderer? – will get the answer she wants to hear. She’s hoping Henri will be found innocent.
Because apart from Marli, he’s all she has left of her little sister.