By Graeme Hosken
A Pretoria IT specialist was gunned down in his lounge chair while watching television late at night.
Ibele Kruger's killers fled with nothing except his wife Amanda's cellphone.
Kruger, 56, who had earlier in the evening surprised his family with tickets to the Blue Bulls-Free State Cheetahs Currie Cup final at Loftus, was shot twice on Thursday night while in the lounge of his Magalies Moot smallholding, west of the capital.
Amanda had just gone to bed when the gunmen invaded their Pine Street home shortly before midnight.
It is believed they took Kruger by surprise when they managed to slip into his home through a sliding door which had been left open for the family's dogs.
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Speaking from home, Amanda said the family was devastated.
"We can't understand it. It just does not make any sense," she said.
Describing how she had jumped out of bed when the gunshots rang out, Amanda said as she escaped through the bedroom sliding door which leads into the garden, a man came around the corner and attacked her.
Pushing a gun into her face, the man grabbed Amanda's cellphone from her as she frantically tried to call police and neighbours for help.
The gunmen then walked off calmly with Amanda's cellphone, leaving her traumatised and kneeling over her husband's body, which was sprawled in the garden where he had collapsed.
Amanda said the first she knew that the family was in danger was when she heard her husband of 28 years screaming.
"He screamed 'no, no, no' and then there were two gunshots.
"When I heard him screaming and the shots, I knew there was danger and that something terrible had happened.
"I knew I had to get out of the house as fast as possible and phone for help. As I ran outside and tried to phone a man pushed a gun into my face and grabbed my phone before he walked away.
"He did not say anything. He just grabbed the cellphone and walked off. It was over so quickly," she said.
Amanda said when she reached her husband he was already dead.
"There was a bullet hole through his hand and in his face and one in his chest. The police said they think he was shot in the face when he put his hand in the way of the gun," she said.
Amanda said she had found her husband under his TV chair blanket in the garden.
"There was blood everywhere and I just followed it (the blood) until I found him. I think when he was shot he did not realise how badly injured he was and ran outside, with his blanket still around him, in an effort to catch the gunmen.
"He collapsed before he could catch them," she said, while softly stroking a picture of her husband.
Police, said no arrests had been made.
Anyone with information on the identity or whereabouts of the suspects can contact Crime Stop on 08600 10111.
- This article was originally published on page 4 of Pretoria News on October 31, 2009
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