By Bronwynne Jooste
Staff Reporter
The property firm owned by a top city businessman who plummeted five storeys to his death in Claremont has hired a private forensic expert to help police with their investigation.
Millionaire businessman Chris Drummond arrived at the Claremont offices of his property firm at 5.26am on Tuesday.
Nine minutes later, security cameras captured Drummond plunging five floors to his death.
Family and friends believe Drummond died during a "robbery gone wrong", and his company, IRR Properties, has hired forensic expert Dr David Klatzow to assist police with their investigation.
On Tuesday night, Klatzow confirmed that he would be assisting the police, but said he could not comment further.
Five minutes after surveillance footage showed Drummond falling on Tuesday morning, he was found face down in Claremont's Stegman Road by a security guard.
According to his IRR Properties Group business partner and friend, Andre Bredenkamp, Drummond's parking bay was about 20 metres from the edge of the balcony in the Stadium on Main parking garage.
The driver and the passenger- side door of Drummond's luxury Audi were ajar and his gym bag was inside.
His laptop, however, was missing, Bredenkamp said.
Police have opened an inquest docket and initial reports said it appeared Drummond had suffered a heart attack. But friends have said this was unlikely, because the 51-year-old property developer was in excellent health.
The police's Warrant Officer November Filander said there were "many possibilities" and neither a heart attack nor a robbery gone wrong could be ruled out.
Drummond leaves his wife, Flora, and the couple's two sons. Andrew, 18, a first-year UCT student, and 15-year-old James, a Grade 10 pupil at Bishops. James was travelling on a hockey tour at the time of his father's death.
Bredenkamp said Drummond normally arrived at the IRR offices before 6am and was "the first person here". For him, he said, that was business as usual.
Drummond was also the chairman of the Claremont Improvement District Company.
It was in this capacity that he had introduced surveillance cameras in the parking garage.
IRR developed the Benguela Cove Lagoon Wine Estate near Hermanus. Bredenkamp said Drummond had recently sold his own house at the estate for more than R30 million.
The firm had also just concluded the sale of Camps Bay Corner for more than R20m.
When legendary cyclist Lance Armstrong visited the country last month, he spent time with Drummond at his coastal estate home. The two men met when Drummond raced for one of Armstrong's charities in 2008.
Drummond himself was a keen cyclist. He completed one of many Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour races this year and regularly competed in the Absa Cape Epic.
In 2004, Bredenkamp and Drummond joined Drummond's former business partner, Mike Nixon, to climb Mount Everest but severe storms prevented Drummond from reaching the summit.