Durban - Lindokuhle Cebekhulu and Mbuyiselo Mthonti were not like other young people. They didn’t have loud music playing, there was no laughter and the two appeared to be carrying the world on their shoulders.
This was the assessment of their neighbours after the pair moved into a shack in Clermont, near Pinetown, about two weeks ago.
“Since their arrival, they kept to themselves. They were always together, just the two of them. They always appeared to be on edge, always looking around them,” said a neighbour.
Police say there was good reason for the men’s furtive behaviour: Cebekhulu, 24, and Mthonti, 26, were wanted for the brutal murders of two security guards and the theft of their guns in Gauteng on October 10. The murders were captured on camera; the footage was circulated and attracted widespread condemnation.
Police say the Crime Intelligence and Gauteng Organised Crime units had worked tirelessly over the past two weeks to track down the culprits. Their search led them to a shack of rusting corrugated metal with sparse furnishings inside in the Ndunduma area in Clermont early yesterday morning.
Brigadier Vishnu Naidoo said the men resisted arrest, which resulted in both being shot dead.
When the Daily News visited the scene on Tuesday, the shack’s red door had a crack near the handle from an apparent kick, and it was apparent that attempts had been made to clean up the blood left by the shoot-out. A piece of police tape lay by the door, and the inside of the shack appeared to have been ransacked.
According to the men’s neighbours, none of whom would be named, the pair had lived in the shack for almost two weeks.
They said the men had not socialised, had not had visitors and always appeared to be looking around them if they were outside during the day.
“We did not find it odd that the two were living here. Even though we did not know them, one of them looked like the woman who owns the shack and we assumed it was her son,” said a neighbour.
She said the shack had burnt to the ground a few months ago and the woman who owned it and her boyfriend moved to another area in Ndunduma.
“They (the shack owners) rebuilt the shack and another man moved in. When he moved out there was no one living there for some time, until about a week-and-a-half ago, when these two boys came,” she said.
The neighbour said she could tell that there was something unsettling about the boys, because they appeared to be troubled.
“Unlike other young people, they didn’t have loud music playing, there was no laughter - they appeared like they were carrying the world on their shoulders,” she said.
The neighbour said they were awoken by kicks against doors and banging on corrugated iron walls early Tuesday morning.
“We all woke up. It was the police kicking and banging on doors. When I heard gunshots, I lay flat on the ground and stayed there till it was quiet,” she said.
Soon after the police left and the mortuary van had taken the bodies away, the family of the woman who owns the shack cleaned the blood off the floor.
Naidoo said a handgun was recovered at the scene. It would be sent for testing to establish if it was used to kill the guards and if it was used in the commission of any other crime.