As the search for “hijack” fugitive Leon van Rensburg intensified last night, his distraught family went to ground, saying that the ordeal was too much for them to handle.
The Sunday Tribune can reveal that while police scoured KwaZulu-Natal in the wake of his staged hijacking and kidnapping last week, Van Rensburg spent the time cloistered in a remote backpackers lodge in the foothills of the southern Drakensberg.
The events of the three days he went missing, how his ruse came unstuck and his confession of a marriage on rocky ground are exposed.
The initial disappearance of the father of three made headlines. The only indication of what may have befallen him prior to his vanishing was an SMS he sent to his daughter Megan, 15, on Tuesday last week, which read simply, “hlp, hijacked”.
He surfaced in Underberg two days after disappearing, claiming he had been held captive in a room for two days before he was released on a district road and later found by a passing farmer.
Tired and dejected, Van Rensburg had actually booked into Khotso Horse Trails last Tuesday under the alias of “Neil”.
The lodge owner, Stephen Black, described Van Rensburg as a broken man.
“When he arrived I was up at the house and he checked in with one of our staff. I met him for the first time later that evening when we invited him to join a dinner party of family friends. I was none the wiser about who this guy actually was,” he said.
Black added that Van Rensburg had confided in him that a strained relationship with his wife had prompted his trip. “He told me that the next day he had to return his car to his wife because they were going through some trouble as a couple and he was worried that she might think he had stolen the car. He was very sombre. He had been sitting with a book in his hands for hours and never turned a page.
“You could tell by looking at him that he was drained. It seemed from what he told me that he was a bit estranged from his wife but they still lived together. I think it was one of his stresses, he said he was very worried about losing his family,” he said.
Black said that “Neil” left early on Wednesday morning and returned later, saying he had been hijacked while driving his white Toyota Tazz in Howick. “When I went to see him at the lodge, he was in the shower and I wasn’t too concerned about the hijacking because he was alive and unhurt.”
He said that only when he saw Van Rensburg’s picture in a morning paper on Thursday did he realise there was more to his story, “I couldn’t believe what I had read. I had to look at the article several times before it sunk in. I decided to go and talk to him and after much coaxing convinced him to contact his family. He was shocked that I had found out who he really was. I think he had no idea what kind of mess he had gotten himself into.”
Black added that Van Rensburg stuck with his version of events, telling his family that he had been hijacked and was found wandering on a farm road.
“I told him to come clean and that he wouldn’t be able to run forever. He called me later and I told him that the police had come to me and I told them the truth. I think it was then that he decided to run.”
Van Rensburg left a laptop computer, a tool box, his wallet and jacket at the lodge. He had apparently tried to give them away.
Black described Van Rensburg as “a fantastic guy”. “He was never aggressive. He was pleasant and I just think he was in a bad place. I felt really sad for the guy and worse when the police arrived.
“I have thought about what my daughter would have done if I had sent her a fake SMS like he did. I shudder at the thought because it’s almost unforgivable,” he said.
On Wednesday this week, after a five-day stay at home in New Germany, Van Rensburg disappeared again.
He withdrew R3 000 from his bank account and fled in a silver Hyundai Getz (another family car) which was later found abandoned in the ICC parking lot in central Durban.
He left a note claiming he was seriously ill and intended to commit suicide.
On the day he disappeared again, the police issued a warrant of arrest for him because he allegedly perjured himself by staging a hijacking.
The warrant was issued at the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court and his photograph was circulated to the media.
His son Graham, 23, said yesterday his father’s latest flight was “too much for the family to handle”. He would not comment further.
This follows his scathing rebuttal of criticism that his father had not been completely truthful about what had happened.
A week ago he was quoted as saying: “The fact is that there was a hijacking, if anybody thinks anything else, then screw them.”
Family spokesman Rob Gardner said Van Rensburg may have boarded a bus.
“We have no idea where he has gone, but the ICC is close to the bus terminal. He has a small amount of money on him, but no access to any further funds,” he said.
Gardner said Van Rensburg appeared to have suffered a complete emotional and mental breakdown.
Police spokesman Jay Naicker said that once the investigation had been completed, police would try to recoup wasted funds.
“When he is eventually caught our financial office will calculate how much it cost us to search for him. The number will definitely be in the thousands, perhaps even hundreds of thousands,” he said.