By Ken Daniels
On Monday morning fugitive Johnny Jooste walked through pupils at the Skurweberg Secondary School and into school principal Abie Klink's office and said: "Please help me. I've had enough. Just phone the police."
Jooste had been on the run since Sunday, when seven people - his wife Elmine, his children Blake and Sanjay, his sisters in law Sophia Swarts, Janitta Jacobs and Cornelia Visagie and Sophia's husband Barend - were shot in the head at a farm in Prince Alfred Hamlet, about 200km east of Cape Town.
"At first I thought he was a security guard because he was dressed in camouflage uniform. But then he came to me and asked me to phone the police," Klink said.
"I took him to my office and told him to just sit quietly because I didn't want to cause a disturbance," Klink said.
"I told him that I prayed for him the whole night hoping that nothing further would happen. He seemed calm but emotionally exhausted.
"I don't know him, but he appeared to know me," Klink said. "I have an idea that his daughter went to the school but we haven't checked the records yet."
Klink said Jooste told him he had walked around a lot and had initially hidden in bushes on the farm then hidden in bushes at the school, about 10km from the farm, before handing himself over.
Police from nearby Op Die Berg police station arrived at the school and arrested Jooste and transferred him to the police station at Prince Alfred Hamlet.
He also handed over his firearm.
He will appear in the Ceres Magistrate's Court within 48 hours, Boland police spokesman Captain Anton de Kock said. - Sapa