The Angella Johnson Interview
Ben du Toit thought he had committed the perfect crime when he had his wife bludgeoned to death in 1992. He had not reckoned on the intensity of her mothers love, or her dogged five-year quest to find the killer of her favoured youngest child.
Joyce Donaldson became the mother-in-law from hell as she badgered police daily for progress reports on the investigation into the murder of her daughter, Joyce du Toit. I suspected almost immediately that Ben had been responsible, but I could not say anything because I had no proof, she tells me in her tiny Brakpan flat on the East Rand.
An elegant great-grandmother approaching her 80th birthday, Donaldson made it her lifes work to see that justice was done after the gruesome killing in Bryanston, Johannesburg. Like a pesky fly she bothered police into re-opening the case about two years ago, after she wore them down.
I would phone Brixton Murder and Robbery unit every day and be told there was no news. In the end they stopped asking who was speaking or what the case was. But she never lost heart. Joyce and I were very close. We spoke every day and saw each other at least a couple of times each week. He killed her and I did not want him to get away with it
Her determination paid off, but it may have taken its toll on her health. She missed the trial, which should have been her moment of triumph, due to sickness having spent the past four months in and out of hospital for a variety of ailments, including pneumonia, asthma, high blood pressure and angina.
The doctor says I think too much. That I bottle things up inside and get very stressed; but it has never been my style to show my feelings openly. I keep things to myself while I try to fathom them.
She is beginning to relax now that Du Toit has been found guilty of murder. Though surprisingly she insists she does not hate him for what he has done. I just want him to rot in jail for the rest of his life. He took away my beautiful shining star, and prevented me seeing by beloved grandchildren for nearly four years. I can never forgive him for that.
A tough, uncompromising woman, she sits bolt upright on a sofa beneath a large photograph of her smiling daughter, who appears to be looking on happy with the outcome of Donaldsons one-woman campaign.
The room is a comforting clutter of plants, dried flowers, ornaments and other paraphernalia memorabilia of a long, and she says, happy life. A luxury her daughter will never experience. Her voice falls to a whisper as she recalls, staccato fashion (as if by rote), the night one of her sons broke the horrific news.
I was at home when I heard the news. My son arrived after midnight. I had been restless and not yet asleep. He said, Mommy, Ive bad news; its about Joyce. I said: Has she been raped? and he replied no, she had been murdered.
It was as if light had gone from her world. I could not believe he was talking about my baby. That I would never see her again. When they arrived at the house in Bryanston, police were still in attendance and the body had not yet been removed.
I was crying but not hysterical, because its not my style to make a fool of myself over something I cannot change. It appeared to her that Du Toit was not particularly distraught over the killing, which he claimed was carried out by burglars who had tied him up in the study while attacking his sleeping 34-year-old wife.
Donaldson, a former factory machinist, and her son sat in the kitchen while Du Toit went to wake their children, who were still asleep in their rooms. How could they have slept through the window being broken and the violent attack which took place? I suspect he had drugged them.
There were many other unanswered questions which fuelled her suspicion that foul play was afoot such as why the security door for the sleeping quarters had not been locked, if everyone had gone to bed. I suspected him immediately. I dont know why, but I have a strong intuition and Im rarely wrong about people, she says.
Unfortunately, the police were convinced by his argument and, according to Donaldson, looked for no other suspects. I believe money passed hands and that he bribed some of the police to turn a blind eye to the evidence, she claims.
Her intuition went into overdrive a few weeks after the funeral when Du Toit bluntly told her in passing one day: Theyll never find the killer. Stunned into action she glared at him and jutted her index finger into his face. Then you did it, she taunted. He never uttered one word in defence.
I want to know why he did not just bring her back to me and say: I dont want her any more, so here she is, says Donaldson. It appears he didnt want to divorce her and share the marital property, and saw a way of making money from her life insurance policy.
She recalls the couple meeting in 1976 when her daughter had worked for one of the Holiday Inn hotels in Johannesburg and Du Toit was a bank teller. Apparently they first saw each other in the hotel lift. She was very excited when she told my husband (a retired miner who was still alive then) and me. But when she brought him home I did not like him.
She found her future son-in-law cold, calculating and money-loving. We never had a long conversation before that night in the kitchen when he told us his version of the events leading to Joyces death.
Money was his God and he became more greedy as their fortunes grew. Joyce came from a close-knit family where love was more important than wealth and she was never seduced by it.
It was not a union she sanctioned. I did not give consent but my husband who had delivered Joyce at home and in whose eyes she could do no wrong gave his. I did not want to give her up to anyone if Im honest, but especially not to him.
Donaldson, who had seven children (a son was killed by drunken Indians in a car accident when aged 29), described her daughter as pleasant, smiling and good- natured. She was not snobbish or flashy, and lived for her four children (aged eight, 11, 15, 17).
Ive not seen or spoken to them for years and that hurts, she says. Shortly after the murder Du Toit, who gained a R5-million fortune from Joyces life insurance, married the nanny hired to look after the children. He told me that as I did not like his new wife, I was not welcome in their home.
The children (she has 14 other grandchildren and six great-grandchildren) were also forbidden to telephone or write to her. I did not do anything about this because I did not want to cause trouble by going against his wishes and interfering with their lives. Now she hopes they will want to see her.
Its not nice to know your father killed your mother, but I hope they realise I did what I did out of love. I asked the same kind of questions Stompies mother has been asking since her son was killed. I hope they will not think badly of me for doing what any parent would have under the circumstances.