Body in boot: family blames hijackers

Published Mar 3, 2015

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Johannesburg - The family of a man whose body was found in the boot of a burnt car in Florida, Roodepoort, say he was hijacked, then murdered.

Joe Sadan told The Star on Tuesday morning that his cousin Gerard Sadan had left his house at about 9pm on Sunday to buy airtime, but never returned. “He was hijacked, tied up, put in the boot of his car and set alight,” he said, adding that Gerard stayed alone in a rented cottage in Albertina Sisulu Street.

His charred remains were found about 3km away in the boot of a Honda Ballade in Church Square Park early on Monday morning.

The car belonged to the Randburg company he worked for.

However, police spokesman Major Mack Mngomezulu denied the man was hijacked and said the motive of the crime was unknown.

“Usually during a hijacking, the car is stolen. In this case, it was not taken,” he said.

 

Gerard is survived by his 20-year-old son and his 17-year-old daughter.

Joe said the family was considering offering a reward for information that could lead to the arrests and conviction of their relative’s killers.

Mngomezulu said the man was burnt beyond recognition. His hands had been tied behind his back.

He was unable to confirm whether the man had been shot before being burnt.

“We are conducting a post-mortem to identify the exact cause of death,” he said.

The car’s interior was burnt to ashes. Only the frame remained on a black patch of grass in the park.

An acrid smell still penetrated the moist air.

Patrick Koopman, a resident who lives near the park, said he had gone out at about 2am to buy medication for a stomach ache at a nearby garage shop.

When he was driving home, he noticed two men in a white Honda Ballade. He saw a third man lying on the back seat.

He went back inside his house, but watched from his window as the men drove slowly on to the gravel road next to the park.

“They parked there for a while before driving on to the grass,” said Koopman.

“I thought they were just waiting for someone and didn’t think anything was wrong at the time,” he said.

Koopman went back to bed, but was woken up by a loud noise at about 3am.

“I went back to my window and saw the vehicle in flames

. The car made a very loud noise when it was burning.”

He said he saw one of the men running away from the engulfed vehicle, but the second man’s clothes were caught in the flames and he was struggling to take them off.

When he eventually managed to remove the burning clothes, he threw them inside the vehicle and ran away.

“The car kept burning until a fire truck came to put out the flames,” said Koopman.

A woman who lives near the park but wishes to remain anonymous for fear of victimisation said the image of the car in flames was imprinted on her memory.

“I woke up when I heard the sound of screeching tyres. When I looked out my window, I saw a car was burning,” she said.

 

“The car sounded like drums banging when it burnt. It is something I will never forget.”

The woman said she was not aware that there was a body inside the car and described the crime as “merciless assassination”.

“The people who killed this man wanted to make a statement. This is an open area, they wanted people to see what they did,” she said.

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The Star

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