64-year-old farmer stabbed, set alight in the Bulwer/Underberg area of KwaZulu-Natal

A group of men stabbed to death and then set fire to a 64-year-old Bulwer farmer on Wednesday. The man’s wife, who had luckily not been home at the time, discovered his charred body inside their house on the Midlands farm.

Authorities responding to the scene said the charred remains of a KZN farmer killed by being doused in petrol and set alight, was “not something they’d have seen before”.

The man was alleged to have been sitting on the veranda of the house on the farm Tatoon, in Bulwer, when he was approached by an unknown number of suspects at about 7pm on Wednesday night, dragged into his home, doused with petrol and set alight.

Police confirmed the incident, but were not willing to yet provide a name.

It is alleged that the wife of the deceased had been helping out at the Sani2Sea cycle race and had come home to their farm to find the access gate on the perimeter of the property locked. She managed to get past the gate and when she approached the front door she noticed blood and then retreated to raise the alarm‚” Berg Protection Service’s spokesperson Brett Deavin stated.

“Some other farmers from the area and our reaction officer came to the scene and went inside the house‚ which had been full of smoke. They found the farmer’s charred remains in the passageway and the house had been ransacked. It looks like they took their time and completely cleaned the place out,” adding that it’s believe the man was stabbed to death with a garden fork before being doused in petrol and set alight. Furthermore he articulated  that the charred remains were “not something we have seen before”. Deavin said: “He was burned beyond all recognition. I have seen a lot of farm killings, but nothing like this.”

He said that because of the state of the body, it was impossible to know if the man was first killed and then set alight, or set alight while he was still alive.

The remote timber farm, which the victim and his wife were renting, had no electronic security, according to Deavin.

Source: African News Agency