Mom recalls Anene’s dying moments

CAPE ARGUS

Corlia Olivier, mother of Anene Booysen who was brutally gang raped and killed in Bredasdorp. Picture Henk Kruger/Cape Argus

Cape Town - The outrage of Bredasdorp residents over the gang-rape, killing and mutilation of 17-year-old Anene Booysen is at boiling point, and they have threatened to take the law into their own hands if they find more suspects.

So far two men have been arrested - Jonathan Quinton Davids, 22, and a second man, who is expected to appear in court on Friday.

Davids appeared in the Bredasdorp Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday on charges of rape and killing.

The community threats come as new details about the extent of Anene’s injuries emerge.

The Cape Argus visited Anene’s family in Simunye RDP development outside Bredasdorp on Thursday.

Wilma Brooks, Anene’s aunt, wept when the question of Anene’s injuries arose. After half a minute’s silence, she began to speak.

Anene Booysen

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“Her throat had been slit, all her fingers and both legs were broken, a broken glass bottle had been lodged in her, her stomach had been cut open… That which was supposed to be inside her body lay strewn across the scene where they found her.”

Anene was left for dead at a construction site near her home. It’s believed her attackers had followed her as she was walking home from a sports bar on Friday night. She was taken to hospital in Bredasdorp, transferred to Worcester and later to Tygerberg, where she died on Saturday afternoon.

The Cape Argus found Anene’s mother, Corlia Olivier, at a relative’s house.

With tears in her eyes she spoke of her relationship with her daughter, who worked as a cleaner for Asla Construction.

“We were mother and daughter, but we were also best friends. She was so helpful - with her around I didn’t need a man in the house.

She worked hard and helped to buy food, we shared everything…”

After years of separation because of financial difficulties, Olivier and Anene had been living together in their newly built RDP house for just two months.

“She was everything to me, and such a joyous person. I can’t recall that I ever lost my temper with her. She was just too sweet,” said Olivier.

On the morning after the attack, Olivier visited her daughter at Otto du Plessis Hospital in Bredasdorp.

“From the moment I entered the door I could hear her screaming ‘mother, mother please help me’ - without her knowing that I had come. I walked up to her bedside and saw what they had done to my girl.”

Mother and daughter shared their final words there, before Anene was transferred to Worcester.

Anene’s room remains as she left it: meticulously tidy, with Michael Jackson posters on the wall and flowers everywhere.

“At night when it gets quiet and I am alone is when I will miss her the most. We always used to joke that we don’t need a TV, because we had each other. I think I may have to get one now,” said Olivier.

Meanwhile, the community has expressed outrage at the brutality of the murder. Some threatened to attack the police van bringing the suspects to court for their next appearance.

“As a community we have to do something to bring this crime against girls and women to an end,” said Sara Mageni whose six-year-old daughter was similarly raped and assaulted with a broken bottle four years ago.

“She’ll never bear children, but at least she’s still with us,” she said.

Community members started listing at least eight similar rapes, assaults and murders in Bredasdorp in the last decade.

Anene will be buried from the VGK Church in Buitekant Street, Bredasdorp at 11am on Saturday.

daneel.knoetze@inl.co.za

Cape Argus