Who hacked to death 59-year-old widow Elma Bredenhann and her elderly mother Albertina when they lay asleep in their beds at their suburban home?
Was it Elma’s soft-spoken daughter Madeleen (29) who is now on trial in the Pretoria High Court for the gruesome killings?
Or was it Elma’s brother, disguised with pantyhose and a balaclava over his head, assisted by his son, a farmer of few words who is described, even by his father, as ”abrupt”?
Was there a family feud about the ownership of two farms — claimed by some to be worth millions, but dismissed as worthless and dangerous by others?
And why did the killer or killers remove the lock from the kitchen’s security door, yet left the bloodied murder weapon at the scene?
This is the mystery that a Pretoria judge will have to unravel when he gives judgement in the trial of Madeleen Bredenhann.
Bredenhann, who denied the charges, on Monday for the first time directly accused her uncle, Ludwig Wambach, of the murders and hinted that his son Dieter might have been involved as well.
Both men denied this. Ludwig Wambach took the strongest exception at the suggestion that he could have killed his own mother and sister. His son said he was nowhere near the house.
”It’s a lie — I know it and God knows it,” he said.
Counsel for Bredenhann, Hennie de Vos, on Monday put her version of the murders to Wambach.
According to Bredenhann, she was in the bathroom when she heard noises and saw two male figures in the kitchen. She ran to her mother and grandmother’s room, where she tried to wake them.
As she was trying to wake her mother, a man came into the room and hacked at her mother with an axe.
”She screamed ‘no’ and tried to push the person’s hands away. The person hacked again in her and her mother’s direction. He hit her mother, who was trying to get up, again.
”At that stage, her grandmother screamed ‘what are you doing?’ The attacker’s attention was drawn away and she jumped past his legs and over the two beds.”
The attacker ran around the beds in her grandmother’s direction.
”The person did not follow her but shouted ‘Madeleen is on her way to you’.”
She saw that the person had on a blue shirt, a pair of jeans and pantyhose under a balaclava over his face. He wore glasses. From the build and voice in sounded and looked like her uncle Ludwig.
She said the person was wearing light gloves.
”She ran to the bathroom, where she heard more chop and bump noises. When everything became quiet, she went to her room, which she locked. Someone tried to open it. The second person said they wanted to talk to her.
”She did not react and shouted that she had phoned the police. She recognised your [Wambach’s] voice saying to the second person he’s wasting his time and they should leave before the police came.
”You continued talking. You said if she talked about what she had seen, the same would happen to her as to her mother and grandmother,” De Vos told Wambach.
The trial continues. – Sapa