A Waterfall gardener made a gruesome discovery when he arrived at his employer’s home, only to find the bloodied body of the resident lying face down in his bedroom on the morning of 5 June 2019.
Blue Security community and media liaison officer Andreas Mathios said a neighbourhood watch member had contacted the company to advise them of a distressed gardener needing help at around 10:48am. “The gardener had stopped a neighbourhood watch member who was driving by and was not able to stop to assist at the time. The neighbourhood watch member then contacted Blue Security to assist the man,” he said.
“When our officer arrived on scene, the gardener advised that when he arrived for work on Tuesday morning, he found the house closed and the driveway gates wide open. He knocked on the front door but there was no reply. He assumed that his employer might have been sleeping, so he knocked on the door repeatedly over a few hours before leaving,” Mathios said.
“When he again arrived for work on Wednesday, the resident’s bakkie was parked in the driveway with the driver’s door wide open and the door to the house also open, with no signs of forced entry,” Mathios said. “The gardener called out repeatedly for his employer and assumed that perhaps he was in the shower, so he sat on the step and waited. He got up and knocked again but there was still no reply. He started getting worried and went inside the house to investigate.”
Mathios said that the gardener noticed his employer was not sitting at the dining room table working on his laptop, which was his usual routine. “The gardener walked into the house, but the owner’s dog did not let him go down the passage. He tried looking down the passage and saw that the bedroom door was wide open, and that the resident was lying face down. He then ran out of the house and tried to call 10111, but he battled to communicate the situation to the police. He proceeded down the road on foot to seek help, which was when we were notified of the incident.”
An armed response officer and a member of the local neighbourhood watch group was despatched to the house to secure the crime scene until the police arrived. “Police found the man lying face down in the bedroom with his face covered in blood. His hands were tied with a belt and shoelaces. The nature of the injuries he sustained is unclear at this stage. ER24 paramedics declared him deceased at the scene,” Mathios said.
Members of the Hillcrest SAPS and senior officials responded to the scene of the crime and are investigating. A postmortem will be concurred to determine the cause of death. “It is currently unclear exactly when the killing occurred but it is believed that the time of the incident may have been between Monday and Tuesday night,” Mathios said.
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