Cape Town - Ebrahiem Phillips, 64, died at the Total filling station in Beacon Valley after he was attacked by three men shortly after withdrawing cash at the ATM.
The popular elderly man was stabbed several times in the chest with a screwdriver and died on the scene.
Three men have been arrested for his murder.
His sister, Nadia Levy, 60, says they are still in shock after the incident and question why he had to be killed this way.
Ebrahiem was unmarried and did not have any children, and had been living with his sister and her family in Lentegeur, Mitchells Plain, Cape Town for the past 30 years.
The pensioner, who enjoyed walking around Mitchells Plain, was known for giving cheap haircuts to both men and women.
His heartbroken sister says she was at the Sassa office at the time of the incident and received a call from a neighbour with the shocking news.
GRUESOME: Ebrahiem’s body covered at the Total Garage in Beacon Valley, Mitchells Plain
“My neighbour told me that there was police here because they found his ID on him and they went to the mosque. Someone at the mosque showed them where we live and my neighbour contacted me,” says Nadia.
“We went to the crime scene. I am still sick and devastated, he was my only brother. He went to the Promenade to Game to buy a DStv decoder, so I can’t understand why he went there [to the garage] and didn’t draw money in the Promenade, but I suppose he was going to Town Centre to his friends.”
According to a police source, the three men were traced to Cricket Street where officers found a suspect with bloodstains on his clothes and a screwdriver.
Police spokesperson, Sergeant Noloyiso Rwexana, confirms that three men, aged 29, 30 and 33 years, were arrested.
Once charged, they will appear in the Mitchells Plain Magistrate's Court, she said.
Ebrahiem's sister Nadia Levy, 60
Nadia says the family is now waiting for her brother’s body to be released from the Salt River Mortuary to bury him.
“We are trying to get the body and, you know, even the people at the morgue knew Ebrahiem,” says Nadia with tears in her eyes.
“We are going to start a petition to oppose the bail for the killers when they go to court and we hope Mitchells Plain people will unite and sign the petition. He did not have to die this way.”
This article was originally published by the Daily Voice