By Helen Bamford
Even by South African standards, the Sizzlers massacre on January 20, 2003 was shocking.
Nine men were slaughtered in one night.
They were bound, their throats slit and then shot in the head before being left in pools of blood in the white Sea Point house with matching picket fence.
Could it happen again?
Only one man, with a bullet wound to the head, and three small dogs, survived the massacre.
Sizzlers killers Adam Woest and Trevor Theys are both serving life sentences for the murders of Aubrey Otgaar, Sergio de Castro, Stephanus Fouche, Travis Reade, Johan Meyer, Timothy Boyd, Gregory Berghaus, Marius Meyer and Warren Visser.
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Following the grisly attack the spotlight turned on to the "rent boy" industry and calls were made to clean up Sea Point, which was branded as a seedy and dangerous underworld home of drugs and gangs.
But five years later, the gay escort business is booming and Sizzlers is now just a dim memory.
"Life goes on," said one man, who has been in the business for 14 years.
'Hate crimes take place across race, age, religion and gender'
Could it happen again?
"Nothing is impossible. We are all vulnerable to hijackings, robberies. All we can do is take more care."
He said technology had probably changed the nature of the business over the past five years.
Today people tended to hook up on the internet before meeting their client, and most rent boys no longer lived in private homes like the Sizzlers boys did at 7 Graham Street. A number of them came from smaller, conservative country homes, and had families who had no idea what they were doing. It made identifying them that much harder.
Some came from broken families. Some saw the work as a stepping stone towards something better.
Some had girlfriends and weren't even gay.
Glenn de Swardt, manager of health services, counselling and research at the Triangle Project, a gay and lesbian organisation, said business was back to normal with plenty of boys getting into the industry to make money for drugs.
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