On Friday 1 June 2001, around 8 am, farmer Jannie Visser (40) and one of his farm workers walked out of the farmhouse on Kleinveld in the Koue Bokkeveld near Ceres/Op-die-Berg in the Western Cape to check a fire burning roughly 100 metres away. Three men were waiting. One of them opened fire and shot Jannie in the chest. He dropped where he stood and died on the spot. The worker bolted and ran about four kilometres to the nearest farmhouse for help. When police arrived at the house, they found his wife, Annelize Visser (33) dead. She had been hiding behind a bedroom door when she was shot in the head. The attackers took nothing. The couple’s three children (aged 8, 11 and 13) were at school. Community members, police and the air force launched a search. Late that afternoon three men, Parlement Ngulube, Elliot Samela and Mpisa Kroze, were arrested. An Uzi sub-machinegun, a Luger pistol and a rifle believed to have been used in the attack were recovered, hidden under a rock. Minister Thoko Didiza attended the funeral and called for the killers to be “dealt with harshly,” claiming the quick arrests showed the rural safety plan was working. (If it was working, no-one would be dead). The usual empty words while another White farming couple was executed and their children orphaned.

In April 2008, South African couple At Deysel (60) and his wife Katrien Deysel (56) were slaughtered on their farm between Lichtenburg and Ottoshoop, North West. This elderly couple had been married for 40 years. Secondary accounts describe At as a retired mineworker who spent most of his working life at Vaal Reefs near Orkney. Neighbors found the couple’s truck crashed on the side of the road. They tried calling, got no answer, and went to check. They found At’s body outside the house and Katrien’s body inside. At had his throat cut from ear to ear. Katrien was raped and then shot dead in the head. Some accounts add that even their parrot was shot dead, and that very little of real value was taken beyond four firearms and a cellphone. The two men responsible, Phillip Moremi (29) and Andrew Madikela (41), both from Zeerust, had broken out of the Ottoshoop police holding cells on the Sunday night before, apparently during Eskom power cuts. Moremi was already being held for the murder of elderly Ottoshoop businesswoman Zaiboon Jeena, who had been tortured with a hot iron, raped, had her fingers broken, and was stabbed to death. Modikela was in for robbery and rape. After escaping, they attacked the Deysels. Police, acting on a community tip-off, cornered Moremi in a hideout in the Malopo area. He pointed a 6.35mm pistol at an investigator and was shot in the hand and groin. He was kept under police guard in hospital. Madikela was later arrested without a struggle at his parents’ home in Denokana Village near Zeerust. Both faced charges of double murder, escape from custody, housebreaking, house robbery, firearm possession and theft, and rape. Four firearms and other stolen goods were recovered. Over 500 farmers from North West towns packed the Lichtenburg magistrate’s court for one of the appearances. Locals called the attack gruesome and racially motivated, pointing out the difference in political response compared to other cases. This is the standard pattern; escaped criminals, extreme overkill on an elderly White farming couple, throat cut ear to ear, rape followed by a head shot, and the usual Eskom-facilitated cell break.