Johannesburg - Shots rang out at 4.20am. There was shouting and chaos, ending with two robbers shot dead by the woman of the house in Glenvista, Joburg, on Monday.
“I heard the first shot… Rocky was shouting. I ran to my bathroom window and called out to him, ‘Is everything okay?’ He shouted back in a panic, ‘Phone the police and community policing forum (CPF)’… The police and CPF were there in minutes,” neighbour Judy Wigington said.
Glenvista CPF spokesman Bruce Lennox said a couple, who are in their fifties, were asleep when two intruders broke into their Swartberg Street house.
A third man kept watch outside the property. “The men made their way into the couple’s bedroom and started shouting that they were going to shoot them,” Lennox said.
“The wife drew her licensed firearm and shot one of the intruders. Her husband tried to tackle the other one. She then shot the second intruder.”
Wigington said one of the dead suspects had jumped from the first-floor balcony. “He fell on to the patio next to the front door after being shot.”
Lennox said the couple’s daughter was home at the time of the break-in but she was safe during the commotion.
The gang had apparently used a crowbar to break open a sliding door, Lennox explained.
Family friend and Danga security member Gavin De Agrela was the first to arrive on scene, at 4.45am. “Rocky called me and told me what was going on. When I arrived I had my gun ready and Rocky shouted to me, ‘Don’t come in, they’re downstairs, they’re downstairs’.
“I saw a man lying by the front door. He wasn’t moving,” De Agrela added.
He convinced the husband to open the garage and let him into the house. “When I got to the couple’s bedroom, I saw the second man lying next to the bed. He was also not moving.”
The police arrived on the scene about four minutes after De Agrela. “They were patrolling nearby. When they heard the call they came straight away.”
When asked how the family were coping, De Agrela said things were starting to sink in. “It’s a shock but they’re okay…
“She (the wife) told me she couldn’t sleep all night. She was tossing and turning, like she felt something was going to happen.”
De Agrela added that the family had had a prior break-in a while back.
“She has slept close to the gun since that incident.”
By 10.30am, police had removed the bodies from the scene and a domestic worker was seen cleaning blood on the patio, next to the front door.
The CPF has launched a manhunt for the third suspect.
Lennox said police were trying to determine whether this crime was connected to two other incidents in the suburb.
“We’ve recently had similar cases where there have been two house break-ins at about the same time in the morning,” he pointed out.
The Star