mrselfdestrukt's Journal: News Flash: They were brutal as animals

Pretoria - When Cathy van der Merwe,53, while chatting to a friend on the phone, sharply pulled in her breath as if about to scream, the friend immediately knew something terrible was going on at the Van der Merwe's house in Eldoraigne, Centurion.

Moments later, the phone was taken out of Van der Merwe's hand and she was shot once. Then the gang took her husband Gus to the room where his wife lay bleeding.

''It was brutal of them to show him what it looked like. When she gasped, they shot her without further ado. They were as brutal as animals,'' a family friend Jan van Aswegen said.

Van Aswegen's wife Dalene was chatting on the phone to Van der Merwe at about 19:00 on Sunday when five armed men entered the house. Van der Merwe's 77-year-old mother Chrissie was dragged out of her bed and she and her son were held together.

One of the five men ransacked the house and came across the unsuspecting woman chatting on the phone.

''There was a noise over the phone and my wife kept on calling out to hear what was happening. She heard Gus say 'sorry, sorry, sorry'. Then we rushed there,'' Van Aswegen said.

The thieves presumably shot Cathy van der Merwe in the head soon afterwards and then took her husband to the same room where his wife lay dying. He was assaulted when he tried to attack one of the thieves.

Attackers fled

The front gate of the Van der Merwes' house was locked, but their friends could see movement in the house and clambered over the wall to get in. The five attackers fled through a side door.

''We went in at the office where Cathy was shot. We could still feel a pulse, but I realised she was dying,'' Van Aswegen said.

Van der Merwe said after the murder that he had never in his life seen so much hatred in the eyes of the men who attacked them. He was shattered by his wife's death.

The thieves fled with several cellphones, a laptop computer, the husband's pistol and the couple's purses. They are still on the loose.

A cremation service for Van der Merwe is scheduled for Thursday in Centurion.