Durban - A private investigator and the police worked around the clock to trace and arrest Leighton Agg’s alleged killer, someone who was known to him, who robbed and killed him in his Hillcrest home last Wednesday afternoon.
Magma Security investigator Shaheen Suleiman said a team of investigators, who were hired by the victim’s family, and police, spent a sleepless week searching for Agg, 42, who was last seen on his way to a dentist’s appointment in Hillcrest, on the morning of the murder. He was driving his white Ford Bantam bakkie in Winston Park.
His body was found outside Pietermaritzburg this week on Wednesday.
“I made a breakthrough, together with the SAPS Pinetown District Detectives and Pietermaritzburg Public Order Policing, which initially found the vehicle and started to help with the investigation,” said Suleiman.
He said the POP unit had found the vehicle abandoned on Market Street in Pietermaritzburg, two days after Agg had disappeared.
Suleiman said investigators had worked around the clock, scouring CCTV camera footage, in search of leads.
“We left no stone unturned. We were looking for a missing person and we received and followed up on information, and arrested one suspect in the Westville area, in the early hours of Wednesday morning.”
Suleiman said the suspect was a contractor, who was allegedly known to Agg, as he had worked with him.
Agg was allegedly robbed of his laptop and killed, before several suspects fled in his vehicle.
“He was murdered in the late afternoon in Hillcrest, at the house where he lived alone. He had last seen his family on Sunday for lunch. Last Wednesday morning he went to the dentist, which was the last time he was seen,” he said.
Suleiman said the SAPS search and rescue team had been called to the scene when Agg’s body was spotted in the water, under the uMngeni River Bridge on Otto’s Bluff Road.
“We had seen the body and the divers had to dive in and pull it out,” Suleiman said
SAPS spokesperson Colonel Thembeka Mbele said the body had been identified as that of Agg.
“His body was spotted lying under the bridge in the water. He sustained stab wounds to the body,” she said.
Mbele confirmed that one suspect had been arrested and further arrests were imminent. The suspect is expected to appear in the Pinetown Magistrate’s court today.
Writing on Facebook, Agg’s sister Tarryn said her parents spoke to him on the day he went missing. However, his phone was off when they tried to reach him the next day.
Search parties were organised on Saturday, along the freeway between Hillcrest and Pietermaritzburg, and the railway line between Hillcrest and Botha’s Hill. Members of the public with drones also stepped in to assist.
Agg’s father Frank said the initial shock of his son’s death was terrible, but the family was coping.
“We feel we are able to cope but every now and again we have a meltdown,” he said.
The Mercury