Just after dusk on Good Friday, April 6, 2012, the peace and quiet of the small Northern Cape town of Griekwastad was disrupted when a teenage boy sped into town in his father’s Isuzu bakkie and screeched to a halt in front of the town’s nearly deserted police station. It was shortly before 7pm when Don Steenkamp ran into the station’s charge office, covered in blood, to announce that his parents and sister had been brutally shot and killed on the family farm, Naauwhoek. Although the killings were initially thought to be just another farm attack, months later a 16-year-old youth was arrested for the murders. This is an extract from The Griekwastad Murders by Jacques Steenkamp.
A few hours later, De Waal, Vermeulen, Don and Andries set off for the scene of the crime. Don’s tent-pegging coach, Bennie Heckroodt, followed them in another vehicle. During the drive, the boy, seated in the back, asked a surprised De Waal what he should do in order to inherit “everything”. In fact, he asked a lot of questions, and at one point even boasted about how fast he had driven his father’s bakkie the night before. From what De Waal had gathered thus far, Deon Steenkamp owned several farms and many livestock, and the estate was worth millions.
