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 Bullet ends dancer's dream
    March 27 2008 at 06:49AM Get IOL on your
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By Barry Bateman

At 19, Estie van Rensburg had just started her first lead role in a production, and was looking forward to a promising career in the South African dance industry.

However, that dream went up in smoke on Wednesday morning. She was found dead, her body sprawled half-naked on her parents bed with a pillow over her face. She had been shot in the head.

Her Gucci handbag was still untouched on the kitchen counter, and her dance bag and a water bottle lay on the couch.

In her bedroom, lay her white and green Puma dance shoes. The walls were filled with images of herself in dramatic dance poses.
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No one heard the gunshot that killed the petite dancer, but the suspects escaped with a TV, a computer and her parents' Toyota Tazz.

Estie was alone at the Tonetti Street home in Faerie Glen because her parents, Koos and Linda, were in George for the christening of their grandchild. They are expected back on Thursday.

Domestic worker Irene Molefe arrived at the house just after 7am.

She noticed that something was wrong when she found the fridge door wide open and the car missing.

"I went to the room and saw what looked like a doll on the bed with a cushion on the face," she said.

Molefe raced across the road to call Estie's friend, Nathan Mowatt.

He peeked through the bedroom window where he saw Estie naked from the waist down with a bloodied pillow over her head.

He notified his mother who called the police

Abrie Burger said his cousin Koos called him to say that Estie had been shot and he should go to their home. "I asked whether I should go to the home or to the hospital. He said to me 'no, she is dead'."

Burger said that about three years ago Estie and Koos were held at gunpoint during an armed robbery in the same home.

Kmad.com dance company owner Kelsey Middleton, who has trained Estie since she was nine-years-old, said Estie choreographed a ballet about that incident as a means of healing.

"She looked great and danced from the soul.

"When she finished school she became a professional dancer and has just started her first lead role," she said.

Estie matriculated from Hoerskool Waterkloof in 2006.

Middleton and 15 of her dancers were receiving trauma counselling at her home on Wednesday. "I am completely hysterical. I can't believe what has happened.

"I am numb. There is no explanation or justification for this. No one is convinced that the crime situation is getting any better. We don't have to get used to this.

"Estie was a small girl and weighed only 38kg. The government needs to open their eyes; time is running out because criminals are killing our children," she said.

Friend and fellow dancer Kim McCusker said Estie had been her friend for the last seven years.

"She taught me Afrikaans," she laughed. "Ek kan a bietjie van die taal praat." (I can speak a little of the language)

McCusker broke down as she described how her life would not be complete had it not been for Estie's friendship.

Referring to the armed robbery at Estie's home several years ago, she said victims of crime often counted themselves lucky when they escaped alive. "But now it's too late. Four years later and she is dead in the same house where the robbery happened.

"We need to do something. We will embark on a journey as a (dance) company and fight against this," she said as tears streamed down her cheeks.

Police spokesperson Captain Julia Claasen said police were investigating house robbery and murder pending the outcome of a forensic report.

Claasen said police were looking for the family's Silver Toyota Tazz with registration NNS 243 GP.

Anyone with information can call the police's crime stop number on 08600 10111.

    • This article was originally published on page 1 of Pretoria News on March 27, 2008
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