De Beer Gerhardus Petrus

Age 82. ert de Beer was at home with his eighty-one-year-old wife, Nicolina Albertina Jacoba de Beer, affectionately known as Lina, who was both blind and deaf. An armed criminal named Welcome Zenzele Bulunga breached the homestead and launched a vicious assault against the elderly couple. Bulunga subjected Gert de Beer to severe physical torture in a deliberate attempt to force him to hand over the hidden keys to the property's asset safe. During the assault, the perpetrator bludgeoned Gert de Beer to death using a heavy hammer. Bulunga then turned on Lina de Beer, striking her and severely chopping her hand with a sharp panga. After rendering her completely helpless, the attacker ransacked the farmhouse and robbed the couple of two mobile cellular phones, a wrist watch, a television set, and two firearms before fleeing the smallholding. Thirteen days after the horrific attack, swift forensic and tactical tracking by the South African Police Service led to the formal arrest of the twenty-two-year-old Welcome Zenzele Bulunga, a resident of the nearby Mganduzweni Trust area. Legal proceedings moved rapidly through the Nelspruit Circuit of the Gauteng Division of the High Court. Facing overwhelming forensic evidence collected by the police, Bulunga opted to enter into a formal legal agreement and pleaded guilty to charges of murder, aggravated robbery, and the unlawful possession of unlicensed firearms and ammunition. On November 20, 2014, the High Court formally accepted the guilty plea and convicted Bulunga, sentencing him to a maximum term of thirty years of direct imprisonment for the murder of Gerhardus Petrus de Beer, ensuring he remained incarcerated without the immediate possibility of a localized parole option.