Durban - Two seasonal farm workers, who are facing triple murder charges in the Pietermaritzburg Magistrate’s Court for allegedly killing a farm manager, his wife and her elderly father on Monday night, were new employees at the farm.
Farm manager Daniel Debruin, 58, his wife Glynis Debruin, 60, and her father Collin Schwegman, 84, were brutally stabbed to death on a Bishopstowe sugar cane farm, just 20km outside Pietermaritzburg.
The farm’s crops were also set alight. The suspects fled with a safe and petty cash.
The latest farm murders follow the killing of Cramond farmer Bill Theron, 85, who was shot on his smallholding on Saturday, and Mpozana Khumalo, 80, who was shot on his son’s farm in Muden and later died in hospital.
Police spokesperson Colonel Thembeka Mbele said that in the latest murders the suspects had arrived at the farmer’s tuck shop located on the premises where they purchased chips and spoke to the farm manager’s son earlier on Monday.
She said, later in the afternoon, Debruin’s son received a call from a neighbouring farmer alerting him that the farm was on fire.
“When he tried to call his parents there was no response. He then rushed to the farm and found bodies of his parents and grandfather, with stab wounds to the necks and head,” Mbele said.
Charges of murder were opened at Bishopstowe Police Station.
Mbele said that after an intense investigation, Bishopstowe detectives, with the assistance of the Mountain Rise K9 Unit, had arrested two suspects – aged 27 and 35 – at Swapo informal settlement in Copesville.
They are expected to appear in court on Thursday.
Farm owner Clinton Diedericks praised the police, especially Captain Rumen Maistry and his team who are attached to the Umgungundlovu North Cluster Crime Intelligence, for their “excellent” work that led to the arrests.
He said the suspects were not long time employees but had been hired for the first time this year as seasonal workers and, contrary to earlier media reports, there had not been a labour dispute.
He said two weeks ago workers had been advised that an annual bonus, which could be in cash or kind by way of food hampers, was at the employer’s discretion and a decision had not yet been made about the award.
He said it was “disappointing” that for petty cash and a safe containing a document, the suspects had allegedly resorted to murder.
“My farm manager, his wife and her father were sitting and having supper, and he got a call from the security gate which was locked. He left his supper and went out. He was stabbed in the head with knives,” he said.
“They then went to the kitchen and did the same to the wife and the father-in-law. It was purely malicious and theft,” he said.
Kwanalu chief executive Sandy La Marque said the union condemned the triple murder “in the strongest terms”.
“The cowardly and callous excuse of a bonus dispute is no reason to take the lives of three innocent people. The alleged murderers have not only destroyed their victims’ futures, but they have also stolen the livelihoods and future of employees and their families,” La Marque said.
The Mercury