real victims. real stories.
Helen and Alice Lotter (2009)
Helen (57) and Alice (76) Lotter were brutally murdered in their Allanridge farmhouse in the Free State in March2009. The attackers tortured and mutilated the mother and daughter for hours.
Helen’s front teeth were smashed out. Her body was covered in bruises, chafing and stab wounds. Her sexual organs were extensively mutilated internally and externally; her cervix and uterus were completely missing. The coroner found the injuries were caused by penetration with a sharp object.
Alice died from asphyxiation after swallowing blood from stab wounds inflicted to her neck and throat.
Potgieter family (2010)
Wilmien Potgieter was only two years old when she was shot in the head at point-blank range and discarded in a box. Her mother’s throat was slit, and her father was stabbed 151 times with a pitchfork. A note left on the farm gate read “We have killed them. We are coming back”. The incident occurred on the family’s farm near Lindley in the Free State in December 2010.
Johan Strydom (2010)
Forty-year-old Johan Strydom was attacked and murdered on his farm in Potchefstroom in the North-West Province in May 2010. He was beaten with an iron bar and dragged behind a vehicle to his storeroom while still alive, leading to a brutal death.
Toon and Rienie Swanepoel (2015)
Toon (72) and Rienie (70) Swanepoel were shot on top of each other on their farm in Bainsvlei in the Free State. Their bodies were covered with thorn branches. They were tortured for hours before being shot in the head. It was the seventh double farm murder in the district since 2010. The Swanepoel murders were similar to the murder of Johan (71) and Cecile (72) Fourie who were killed on their farm near Trompsburg in September 2012.
Susan (sue) Howarth and Robert Lynn (2017)
Sue Howarth and Robert Lynn, both in their 60s, were attacked on their farm near Dullstroom in Mpumalanga in February 2017. The couple was tortured with a blowtorch, shot and left for dead in a ditch. Only Lynn survived the incident.
Hankey farm attack (2018)
In March 2018, a mother and her three children were tied with fencing wire on their farm outside Hankey in the Eastern Cape. The attacker threatened to kill the father (who was not home at the time) and proceeded to rape the mother, who had already suffered a gunshot wound to the lower part of her body, in front of her daughter. He also attempted to rape the daughter. The family survived the ordeal but were severely traumatized.
Tool and Liezel Wessels (2019)
Tool Wessels and his wife Liezel (both 55) were farm owners of the farm Kapteinsdrift near Bonnievale in the Western Cape. In May 2019, their farm was invaded by four attackers, who brutally tortured them. Tool was shot and killed, while Liezel was tortured—burned with boiling water, stabbed in the chest, and left for dead—but survived.
Brand family (2020)
Danie Brand (83), his wife Breggie (73) and their daughter Elzabie (54), were assaulted and abducted from their farm near Hartswater in the Northern Cape in July 2020. Their bodies were discovered days later. Two of the victims’ bodies were abandoned in remote areas in the veld (wide, open rural grass landscape) near Takaneng village, while the third body was concealed in a cave near a natural spring.
The deceased were tied up and strangled and sustained various blunt and sharp force trauma injuries to their heads and bodies.
Brendin Horner (2020)
Brendin Horner (21) was a young farm worker whose murder on a Free State farm in October 2020 sparked national outrage. Horner’s body was discovered by his father on the morning of October 2, after the family had searched for him throughout the night. Horner was found tied to a metal fence post with a rope around his neck. He had stab wounds to his head, face, shoulder, arm and hands, and appeared to have been tortured and strangled.
A few days later, an arrest was made. While the perpetrators’ court case was being heard, members of the radical Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party chanted outside the court, mocking the mourning community with the song “Kill the Boer, Kill the Farmer!”
In its judgment on whether the song “Kill the Boer” amounted to hate speech, the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that the “Kill the Boer” chant is not hate speech. Brendin Horner’s accused murderers walked free, as there was not enough evidence to implicate them in the murder.
Francis Davidson (2023)
Seventy-five-year-old Francis Davidson died in hospital due to injuries he sustained during a violent attack on his farm in the Nqanqarhu district (Maclear) in the Eastern Cape in April 2023. Davidson was severely assaulted and tortured for hours before being discovered the next day. He was, among other things, beaten with a two-by-four. His attackers also poured paraffin over him and set him alight. It also appeared as if an object was placed in his ear and set alight. Francis sustained severe head injuries and later underwent two brain operations. He suffered from severe muscle trauma and had many burn wounds on his body. His condition kept deteriorating and by the end of May he could not recall his own name. He also did not recognize his family anymore. Davidson died on June 13, 2023.
Jayden Louw (2023)
Jayden Louw was 15 years old when he was shot point-blank with a shotgun while protecting his mother during a violent home invasion on their farm near Bapsfontein in Gauteng. The incident occurred in October 2023.
Anneke and Hennie Claassen (2023)
Anneke and Hennie Claassen, two senior citizens, were severely assaulted and tortured on their farm near Ohrigstad in June 2023. They lived in separate houses on the same property, which was set alight during the attacks. Their charred remains were later discovered in their homes.
Hendrik Venter (2024)
Eighty-one-year-old farmer Hendrik Venter was brutally murdered on his farm in Kuruman in the Northern Cape in September 2024. His body was discovered near a gate on a neighboring farm. Venter had deep lacerations on his head.
Robert Stoltz (2025)
Robert Stoltz (78) was tied up, beaten, tortured and killed on his farm in Roossenekal in Limpopo in May 2025. His daughter discovered his bloodied body in the bathroom of his house the morning after the attack.