Another victim of the gruesome early Monday morning attack at a massage parlour in Sea Point, Cape Town, has died in hospital, bringing the death toll to seven, hospital authorities said.
The bodies of six men were found at a house in Graham Road, while four seriously injured men were admitted to two hospitals in Cape Town.
A representative for Groote Schuur Hospital, Philippa Johnson, said three of the injured were admitted on Monday morning, and one had died at 8am.
”One has died and the remaining two are in a critical condition in the ICU,” she said.
Somerset Hospital medical superintendent Dr Ria Kirsten said that a young man — in a serious, but stable condition — had been admitted there, but would be transferred to Groote Schuur later in the day.
Police representative Captain Etienne Terblanche said one of the four injured men was seen by neighbours running out of the house with wounds to his neck and head to a service station in nearby Main Road.
The six men who were killed in the massage parlour had all been tied up and shot in the head at close range. Their throats had also been slit.
The four injured men — also shot in the head — were rushed to a Cape Town hospital.
Police, who rushed to the parlour after neighbours notified them of shots fired around 4.30am, described the scene that greeted them when they arrived as ”horrific”.
Terblanche said there was ”an incredible amount of blood about” and therefore it was initially difficult to determine the exact wounds.
”When we arrived, the injured were crawling around on the floor,” he said.
Terblanche said the residential house at 7 Graham Road was rented out and was run as a massage parlour, apparently for gay men.
Each room in the house served as a massage suite and the walls were decorated with graphic pornographic images. Bondage equipment was also found in the house.
There are signs on the front of the house with the words ”No cheques accepted”.
The police are not yet certain whether the six dead were all clients or whether some of them were masseurs.
The road was cordoned off at both ends on Monday morning, and there was a huge police presence at Number 7. Police forensic experts were also on the scene.
A crowd of curious onlookers had gathered at the scene as the media hung around trying to glean information. Faced with a barrage of speculative questions from reporters about possible links between the massacre and drug dealers and protection rackets, Terblanche would not be drawn on the leads police were following.
”At this stage we are investigating all possibilities. It is obviously a very early stage of the investigation. We are questioning people and putting the puzzle together,” he said.
Asked if the shootings were all execution-style in the back of the head, Terblanche said: ”Let’s not go into graphic detail.”
Terblanche said police did not know if there any other people in the house at the time of the attack, besides those who were killed and wounded.
Police, trying to establish who worked at the premises, took a statement from a client who arrived at the house shortly after the shooting. – Sapa