Johannesburg - Gunmen burst in as Jonny Kenny stood over a stove, cooking his wife a Valentine’s Day meal.
He died on his kitchen floor in his own blood – an innocent man whose murder, it appears, was a message to his family.
That is what his family believe, and they fear what is to come.
Kenny was gunned down in the kitchen of his Ramaphosa home in Ekurhuleni on Friday night.
Relatives said he had come home to cook a meal for his wife.
“The two gunmen started shooting from outside and then walked into the house. Two others were standing outside the house,” said a fearful relative.
Nothing was taken.
One bullet struck the top of a chest freezer; another, the police forensics team had to dig out of the wall.
Family and friends said they believed Kenny’s murder was gang related, and connected to the fight between the Sour Boyz and the Terribles in Ramaphosa and nearby Reiger Park.
They said the 42-year-old welder was not affiliated to any gang, but was killed to send a message to members of the Terribles.
A police source said that while Kenny was not a gang member, it was alleged his brother was. And it also appeared that Kenny moved in the same circles as the gangsters.
On a mantelpiece in his lounge is a photo of him drinking a quart of beer with the man who family members claimed was the leader of the Sour Boyz, who are believed to be behind his murder.
The two men were friends.
Another relative said she walked past a Sour Boyz gang member at court recently, and he told her: “We are coming for your family.”
Police are still looking for a motive for Kenny’s murder.
Suspicious-looking cars have been driving past their house in the middle of the night since the shooting. “At the moment, if someone dropped a teaspoon, we would drop to the floor and take cover,” a relative said.
A friend mentioned revenge. “After we bury him, the war starts. They broke my heart,” he added. But the family were quick to quash any talk of reprisals.