4 black males scheduled for bail-hearing on Jan 21 2014 for double-murders of Afrikaners Pikkie and Rina Stassen (Aug192013)

Update December 4 2013: Four black male suspects in total have been arrested for the double-murders of Stassen couple remanded to Jan 21 2014 bail hearing 3 December 2013 Kempton Park Express: journalist Roux van der Merwe: "The four suspects for the double-murders of resident couple Pikkie Stassen and his wife, Rina, will have to wait until January 21 2014 to hear if they will receive bail. ------ Black Kempton Park residents Thabo Mphahlele (26), Howard Sekwati (27), Kenneth Mojela (24) and Ntombe E Thobejane (25) were arrested for murdering the Stassens in the early morning hours of August 19 2013 in their home in Allen Grove, Kempton Park. The four black men were not previously known to the Stassen couple, the SAPS has reported. http://www.looklocal.co.za/looklocal/content/en/kempton-park/kempton-park-news-crime?oid=7990128&sn=Detail&pid=490121&Bail-hearing-postponed ----------------- Aug 23 2013: Two black males arrested in Sethokga hostel Tembisa for gruesome double-murder of Afrikaner couple Pikkie and Rina Stassen: 2 blacks held for double-murder of Afrikaner couple Pikkie & Rina Stassen: ----------- http://t.co/EIYYuWP7TE http://t.co/h5JsSV2A2d --------------- http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Elderly-Gauteng-couples-murder-Two-held-20130823 2013-08-23 Johannesburg - Two black males were arrested on Friday at the Sethokga hostel, Tembisa in connection with the double-murder of Pikkie and Rina Stassen in their Jacobus Street, Kempton Park home, Gauteng police said. It is hoped that the SAPS questioning will reveal why the Afrikaner couple were so brutaly slaughtered. "An intensive investigation and a tip-off from members of the community today [Friday] has led to the arrest of two young suspects," Captain Jethro Mtshali said. The men, in their 30s, were arrested in the Sethokga hostel in Tembisa. After police questioned them, the two men helped police recover two TVs, a computer, and two laptops."The items were stolen during the house robbery where the elderly couple were found," said Mtshali.The two were still being questioned in the afternoon, and more arrests might be made. They were expected to appear in the Kempton Park Magistrate's Court soon, Mtshali said.Pikkie Stassen and his wife Rina, both in their 70s, were found dead in their Jacobus Street home on Monday morning, Beeld reported.Their daughter Karien Linley found their bodies when she arrived to drop off her 1-year-old son with them.Pikkie Stassen was found stabbed to death in the garage, with his hands bound. His wife's body was in the bedroom. She appeared to have been strangled. - SAPA http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Elderly-Gauteng-couples-murder-Two-held-20130823 ------------ 21 August 2013 Roux van der Merwe LookLocal.co.za: KEMPTON PARK: THE DOUBLE-murder of the elderly Allen Grove Afrikaner couple Pikkie and Rina Stassen on Monday morning has shocked the community. Since the article had been published on looklocal shortly after the incident, many residents expressed their shock about the brutal double murder. The bodies of Mr Pikkie Stassen (75) and his wife, Rina (74) were discovered in their Jacobus Road home by their daughter, Mrs Karien Linley (36), who went to get her daughter's cell phone which was at the couple's house. The last time she spoke to her mother was at 6.30am on Monday.According to their son, Mr Mike Stassen, when his sister stopped in front of the gate, a well dressed man opened the gate with the remote and motioned for her to come in. Stassen said his sister suspected something was wrong.She thought quickly, backed up and drove around the corner. She tried to phone her father, and according to Stassen, one of the suspects picked up the phone, laughed at her and then hung up.She then tried to phone Stassen, who was in a meeting, to tell him what happened.Stassen said at first she could not get through to him. The suspects escaped in the couple's white BMW in the meantime. After Linley tried to phone Stassen again, he answered the call and she told him what happened. Stassen immediately drove to the house but was stuck in traffic. He phoned his friend, W/O Bennie Liebenberg. Liebenberg went to the scene where he found Linley and the Stassen's other son, Heinrich (43), who by then had discovered their parents' bodies. When Linley was waiting for her brothers, she went inside and found her father's body in the garage. According to Capt. Jethro Mtshali, spokesman for Kempton Park SAPS, Pikkie's hands were tied and he was stabbed several times with a sharp object.Mtshali said Rina's body was found in the bedroom with her hands also tied. She was gagged.According to Mtshali it is uncertain how she died but it looked as though she had been strangled . She was also covered in blood.Stassen said his father was stabbed with a screw driver and his mother tied up with cable ties and strangled with a scarf.Mtshali said the house was ransacked and various valuables, including the house's CCTV cameras, were missing. Mike said the forensic team found the CCTV recorder behind a shelf at about 4.30pm while examining the scene. They do not know whether the suspects ripped out the camera cables before hand or whether they were caught on camera.The suspects got away in the victims' white BMW 118, registration number YTY916 GP. Stassen said the BMW's tracking device last showed it was in Tembisa.Stassen, who works with season contractors in Tembisa, sent out a mass sms to every worker on his database, offering a R10 000 reward for anyone who finds the car which would lead to the arrest of the suspects. Mtshali asks anyone with information to contact the police on the toll free number 08600 10111 or sms them on 322 11.Mike said his father, who was an accountant for most of his life and later secretary at Kempton Kruin Church, was a keen gardener. His father had a passion for his garden and community. So much so that he sometimes had grievances with people driving over the stop sign next to his house without stopping.Elderly people have been driven over at this stop sign as a result of people not stopping. That was why his father took it upon himself to make sure people drive responsibly.Stassen said some time ago his father was attacked by a young man who drove over the stop street. When Pikkie confronted him, the young man assaulted him. A case of assault was opened, but his father dropped the case because he did not want to ruin this young man's life. "My parents were wonderful people" Stassen said. His mother, a home maker, and his father, who played rugby for Western Province in the '60s, regularly handed out Bibles. Although hard headed at times, his father had the smallest heart of anyone he had ever met, Stassen said. http://www.looklocal.co.za/ kempton Park ============== An elderly Afrikaner couple, Pikkie and Rina Stassen, 75 and 73, were discovered murdered in their Cactus Road home in Kempton Park on August 18 2013. Roux van der Merwe of Look Local in Kempton Park writes that the daughter found her parents' bodies on August 19 2013. Kempton Park SAPS is still uncertain about the time of the murders but they were contacted by the couple's daughter at about 7.20am. (DETAILS OF THE DAUGHTER'S REPORT BELOW THIS STORY). -------------- ALSO PLEASE NOTE: (A puzzling comment was placed by a reader calling himself Ben Liewbenberg (?) on the August 20 2013 Beeld story about the Stassen double-murder - and we attach this comment with a pageview picture herewith (translated) - very likely a hoaxer as the person apparently could not spell his own name correctly. However we place the pageview picture for the record). ------------ UPDATE: Murdered man Pikkie Stassen had lodged a charge of assault against an 22-yr-old man; and the SAPS never fetched a video showing a gang breaking in two months earlier: --------------------- August 20 2013: In a follow-up report by Beeld newspaper about the double-murder of a murdered Afrikaner couple Pikkie and Rina Stassen, 75 and 74, some very interesting facts were revealed about their recent lives. The first worrisome fact was that a video which had recorded a group of thieves trying to break into the property a few months earlier, had never been fetched by the SAPS. In fact it was left inside the video-recorder which was stolen when the couple were murdered yesterday. The couple's badly shocked son Mike, told Beeld that the video-material was still inside the machine - waiting to be fetched by the SAPS - and that it was stolen when the Stassen couple was murdered. "On that video material you could see how they tried to break in, but the SAPS never came to fetch it after the break-in was reported, and now the DVD-recorder with the evidence has been stolen,' said Mr Mike Stassen. He spoke to a Beeld journalist who was at the crime scene a day after the elderly couple were murdered. The previous breakin was two months earlier -- but it was apparently one in a series of at least breakins throughout the suburb which the SAPS never investigated, even they they were reported. "The thugs who tried to break in two months ago fled when the alarm went off',' said Mike. He also told the journalist that his father had only recently lodged a charge of assault against a 22-year-old man who had hit him so hard with his fist that the old Afrikaner had fallen to the ground. "This man had run at high speed past the Cactus Road stoplight and when my dad shouted at him". (Mr Stassen enjoyed working in the garden, neighbours confirmed). Mike said the motorist had stopped and picked a fight with his father, hitting the old man so hard with his fist that the Afrikaner fell on the tarmac. "Then the man drove away at high speed across the grass along the kerb. My dad lodged a charge against the young man but then withdrew it, saying that he didn't want to ruin a young man's life with a court case and a criminal record. That's the kind of man my dad was' said Mike. The couple's daughter Karien Linley said she still spoke to her mom the previous day at around 06h30am to arrange for her to drop off her one-year-old baby , Christopher for a day-long visit with his grandmother. "My dad was planning to take his car from the garage for a service, and we suspect that he was ambushed when he pulled the car out of the garage,' said Mike. Just after 07h00 Karien showed up at her parental home in Jacobus Street with the baby - but became suspicious when she saw an (unknown black) man in the driveway he gestured to her drive into the driveway. She kept driving on and phoned her brothers Mike and Heinrich on her cellphone. When she was still driving away she saw her parents' white BMW118i - registration YTY 916 GP - drive at high speed from the gate and drive towards Cactus Road. Mike - who was at a meeting in Boksburg - phoned a police-friend who immediately went to his parents' home. By that time the daughter, who had returned to the house, found her dad's body in the garage, and her mother's body in the bedroom. Her father had been stabbed repeatedly: and her mother was tied up, she was covered in blood and it is suspected at this stage that she was smothered. SAPS capt Jethro Mtshali said the house appeared to be 'ransacked'. Cupboards were opened and some of the mirrors were broken. A woman living in an apartment across the street did report having heard screaming just after 07h00am but thought it was their TV. A large group of family members and friends were gathered in front of the murder-house when Beeld arrived, supporting one another. http://www.beeld.com/nuus/2013-08-20-bejaardes-vermoor --------------- NOTE: In a puzzling comment from a reader on Beeld's story above, this was noted: by a person calling himseld Liebenberg: "It was so unnecessary and the good news is that we have found the DVD-recorder at the house and hope that the recorded material shows the suspects and that they can be traced". ---------------------- A previous statement just after the murder, made by Capt Jethro Mtshali, confirmed that the couple's daughter found the front gate open. When she went inside she found her father's body in the garage. According to Mtshali HIS HANDS WERE TIED and he was stabbed several times with a sharp object. The daughter went inside the house and found her mother's body in their bedroom. The elderly woman's hands were also tied and she was gagged. According to Mtshali it is uncertain how she died but it looked as though she was strangled. She was also covered in blood. Mtshali asks anyone with information regarding this crime to contact the police on the toll free number 08600 10111 or sms them on 322 111. http://www.looklocal.co.za/looklocal/content/en/kempton-park/kempton-park-news-crime?oid=7713902&sn=Detail&pid=490118&Daughter-finds-parents-bodies ------------------