The children of prominent Cape Town businessman Andrew McKenzie, Daniel (18) and Jamie (17), have been arrested for their father Andrew’s murder and an attack which left their mother, Olivia, in a coma. Mr McKenzie, 47, was found shot dead in his luxury Bishopscourt residence on Friday morning, with his wife Olivia bleeding profusely from a head wound at the end of a grisly trail of blood.
There were no signs of forced entry, but the family safe was found open and empty. Panoptix Security’s Morgan Witbooi - responsible for security on the street in front of the McKenzies’ home, noticed that their front door was open when he arrived for his shift at 07:00 on Friday morning and discovered the gruesome scene in the house’s reception room. He raised the alarm and a police team led by veteran Detective Forty Bell arrived on the scene shortly afterwards to secure the area and start the investigation.
Mrs McKenzie is currently being treated at the Constantia Clinic, where she remains in a coma. Doctors were unable to provide any updates on whether she would survive her injuries. Daniel and Jamie were initially nowhere to be found when police arrived, raising concerns that they may have been abducted as part of the attack. They were subsequently discovered by their aunt - Daily Mercury investigative journalist Edie Hansen - in an outbuilding on the property later that morning and taken into custody by the police.
The McKenzies’ resident domestic worker, Pearl Gaba, was absent from her quarters on the property when police arrived on the scene - but was tracked down by Hansen later that evening as she departed Cape Town station on a bus bound for Zimbabwe and handed over to police, who had originally dismissed her as a suspect.
Jamie and Daniel McKenzie were arrested after Gaba had been questioned, having been released into Hansen’s care but opting to stay at the home of their neighbours, the Webers, where they were arrested early on Saturday morning.
Detective Bell and Edie Hansen have a long history, with the former having been demoted from the Hawks after a series of articles by the latter showed how he had bungled the high-profile du Toit murder case.
More news is expected on the case weekly on M-Net (DStv Channel 101).
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