Johannesburg - The four-year-old boy who was dragged to death by hijackers in Boksburg wanted to be an engineer, his father said on Wednesday.
“Last week he told his mother he wanted to be an engineer because he liked Ferraris and Bugattis,” said Elwin Morris.
Taegrin Morris had told his mother Chantel last week that he would move to Germany where he would have his own workshop and design the expensive cars.
He died after being dragged for a long distance behind a hijacked car on Saturday night.
He was in a VW Golf with his mother, father, and sister in Reiger Park, Boksburg, when three men approached them.
Police spokeswoman Lt-Col Khensane Magoai said they ordered the family out of the vehicle. Taegrin was left hanging halfway out of the car in his safety belt and was dragged as the car was driven off by the hijackers.
He was found dead in Reiger Park, between eight to 10km away.
His father said: “He was a brilliant child, I will remember him as a star.”
Morris said the family was still angry because what happened to his son was inhuman.
“No parents prepare themselves for something like this. You don't prepare for seeing your child being dragged by a car on the road.”
Chantel Morris's sister, who did not want to be named, said the Morris family had visited a grandmother in Reiger Park and were returning to their home in Dawn Park when the incident happened.
She remembered how Taegrin did not want to leave because he wanted some pancakes.
“He didn't want to go because his other aunt was making pancakes and he wanted to have some before he left,” she said.
Chantel Morris told them that the boy's leg was strapped by the car's seat belt when he was dragged.
Meanwhile, A congregation from the Methodist Church of SA held a prayer session outside the Morris home on Wednesday.
Women dressed in the red and white church uniforms filled a white tent erected on the street in front of their home.
Family members, friends and neighbours also attended the prayer session led by the president of the SA Council of Churches Bishop Ziphozihle Siwa.
A neighbour, Carol Botha, said although they lived far from Reiger Park, they did not feel safe anymore.
“These guys also come this side and commit crime, so we are not safe at all.”
She said her neighbours, the Morris family, were devastated and torn apart because “part of them was taken away”.
Taegrin Morris would be buried on Saturday.
No arrests had yet been made.
A man was taken in for questioning, but police would not release finer details of the investigation.
Sapa