Three family members from Andeon in the west of Pretoria are still receiving hospital treatment after they were attacked early Saturday morning by three armed suspects in their home on a smallholding in the area.
Pieter Venter (34), his wife, Stephenie (34), and her son, Jayden Swart (13), suffered serious stab wounds in the attack and are currently still being treated for their injuries in Kalafong Hospital.
According to Angela Laidlaw, Stephenie’s older sister, the incident took place at around 02:00.
“Jayden came back yesterday from Port Elizabeth (Gqeberha) where he went to visit his father. He only landed around 00:00 last night.
“My sister-they were probably at home just after 01:00, after which she and Pieter went to sleep. However, Jayden was still awake in his room playing on his phone,” says Laidlaw.
A while later, he heard noises coming from the master bedroom where his mother, stepfather and two half-sisters were sleeping.
“Jayden heard something was wrong, after which he went to investigate. When he walked into the bedroom door, he saw three armed men standing by his parents’ bed.
“He ran to the kitchen and grabbed a broom to hit one of the thugs with it. However, they then pounced on him and started stabbing him with knives they found in the kitchen,” says an emotional Laidlaw.
“They literally attacked him mercilessly with knives,” she says.
However, Stephenie and Pieter immediately fought back and tried to get the miscreants away from Jayden. Both suffered very serious stab and cut wounds in the process.
The couple later managed to get the attackers away from Jayden, after which they chased the thugs out of the room and were able to lock the door. The perpetrators apparently fled the scene moments later.
The couple’s two daughters, Skyler (8) and Shenique (4), were also in the master bedroom during the attack and came away from the attack physically unharmed, but very traumatized.
“Especially Skyler, she witnessed everything. She just wanted to protect her little sister and held her the whole time and told her to keep quiet.”
Laidlaw says Pieter and Stephenie suffered “too many wounds to be able to describe”. 13-year-old Jayden was stabbed in the head and shoulder.
The perpetrators, believed to be a white man with blond hair and blue eyes, as well as a black man and a brown man, “stole everything from the family”.
“Jayden literally has nothing as all his things were still in the two suitcases he brought with him from Port Elizabeth.”
She says they later traced the mobile phone signal, after which they were able to determine that the three suspects had first emptied the house before brutally attacking the family.
“After they took everything they could out of there, they went back to demand money and bank cards from my sister and her husband.”
Nico van Vuuren, chairman of sector 4 of the Hercules police’s community policing forum (GPF), says he received a call at 03:10 informing him of the brutal attack in Verreynestraat.
“The three suspects cut a fence on the southern side of the holding and entered the house from an empty yard.
“They then removed boards from a wooden door and broke open the barred gate to gain access to the house.
“When the suspects fled the scene, they had nothing in their hands; we therefore suspect that a vehicle was involved here. The suspects took things, went out and went back into the house,” says Van Vuuren.
Laidlaw later described the family’s home as a massacre.
“There was so much blood in the house. They hurt my sister and her husband so terribly.”
The family received medical treatment at the scene after which an ambulance was arranged to transport them to the nearest hospital.
All three family members are currently in a stable condition in hospital. The two little girls are with their grandmother and grandfather who live in an apartment on the same plot as the family.
