A Sutherland policeman who survived a deadly shooting allegedly at the hands of a French cult couple who are now on the run, told yesterday of how he lay on the ground praying his attacker would not finish him off.
Speaking from the intensive care unit at N1 City Hospital in Cape Town, Warrant Officer Glenwall du Toit said he was lucky to still be alive.
His colleague was killed in the shooting on Hardie farm, 35km from Sutherland, on Friday. The couple, who are heavily armed, fled and were still at large at the time of going press.
“After he shot me in the back, he kept firing at the tyres of our cars. I lay on the ground, afraid I was going to die,” said Du Toit, 42.
When the Cape Times team entered Du Toit’s hospital ward, his pastor Aubrey Adams was praying for him.
Du Toit said the shooting took place when he and three fellow officers went to the farm of Gerhardus du Plessis to collect unlicensed firearms from his tenants, a French couple - Philippe and Agnis Neniere.
The Nenieres are believed to be survival experts who belong to a cult, the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, started in 1988 in rural Yelm, Washington State, in the US. They had lived on the farm for 12 years but were being evicted because of their bizarre behaviour.
When the officers went to the farm on Friday they were accompanied by the Du Plessis’ two sons, Cobus and Jaen.
Du Toit said they arrived and found the firearms without any problem. But when they were loading the guns into a police vehicle, Philippe, believed to be in his 60s, told them he was not feeling well.
He asked for a few minutes and then turned away from them, said du Toit.
“He turned around and suddenly I heard gun shots. We split in different directions.”
As he was running for cover, Du Toit was shot in the back.
“I jumped over a gate but I had run about 10 metres when I felt sharp pain in my back. It was one shot and I fell.”
Du Toit said the man fired a lot of shots but he had no idea his colleague, Student Constable Jacob Boleme, had been shot. “When I was being taken away from the scene, I looked around and saw my colleague had been shot,” he said.
Boleme, from Soutpan in the Free State, died on the scene.
Du Toit was taken to Sutherland Hospital and later airlifted to the N1 City Hospital.
A father of two, Du Toit said
he was shot in the spinal cord but his doctor said he would recover. He said his wife Wendy, a teacher in Sutherland, was worst affected by the tragedy.
Wendy, who accompanied Du Toit to Cape Town, said she was relieved he was alive.
“It could have been worse, but God protected him.
“I was shocked. I am very close to him,” she said.
Sutherland police spokesman Hendrik Swart yesterday said they were still searching for the heavily armed, slender couple believed to have been wearing khaki or camouflage when they fled on foot into the hills. Two helicopters, police trackers and a large police ground crew had searched for them after the shooting.
Asked whether police had leads as to the whereabouts of the couple, Swart said: “They could be anywhere.”
Cobus du Plessis’s wife Jolene said the Nenieres had changed from people who “kept to themselves, but in a good way” to being “arrogant and aggressive”.
“In the last two years, they got a little strange. They wanted to have an underground bunker, and asked Cobus’s dad about it and obviously he just laughed at them.”
She said Philippe had this year come to town, selling utensils and electrical equipment to a trader.
“They looked skinny and looked like they weren’t eating much. When he was at a braai he (Philippe) would put on long rubber gloves and goggles over his eyes. It seemed like they weren’t going to last a day outside. They were at my wedding in 2008 - we called them our friends,” Jolene said.
Dave O’Hearns, owner of Primrose Cottage guest house, said he had not seen much of the couple in his seven years in Sutherland. It was probably four years ago when he last saw them in a local supermarket, he said.
“(The shooting) is not the kind of thing that happens in Sutherland - we like publicity, but not this kind,” he said.
Late yesterday, police were at the farmhouse, where officers were still at work as the sun went down. Some were in police uniform, some in camouflage. On the lawn, two officers lay with binoculars, scanning the driveway in. - Cape Times