Botha Herman

He was 64 years old and worked as a prominent local grain and beef producer who employed about 30 permanent laborers in the agricultural community.The attack was a coordinated, simultaneous ambush carried out by a large gang consisting of between eight and eleven attackers. The incident began during the morning when Herman Botha and his son, Bernard Botha, returned to the homestead after working out in the fields with their cattle. The group of men swarmed them, viciously assaulting Herman Botha and robbing him of his personal firearm. Concurrently, his wife, Meisie Botha, and his daughter-in-law, Benita Botha, arrived back at the house after attending a local church service and were immediately overpowered by the remaining segment of the gang. The attackers ransacked the property, stealing cellular phones, the family's firearms, and personal items like Herman Botha's spectacles. The assault left Herman Botha severely injured and in extreme shock. Because he had undergone a medical angiogram and had two cardiac stents inserted just the previous week, the physical trauma caused him to suffer a massive, fatal heart attack shortly after the perpetrators fled the scene. The Groblersdal farm watch responded to an emergency call and placed him in an ambulance to transport him to a nearby rugby field where an emergency medical helicopter was on standby. He died inside the ambulance before he could be transferred to the aircraft for his flight to a specialized hospital in Pretoria.Following the attack, swift tracking operations led to the police arrest of multiple suspects, including Zimbabwean nationals and one of Herman Botha's own farmworkers who allegedly acted as an inside informant. Four specific suspects—Tobias Moyo, Fanie Makwaka, Chris Langa, and Thomas Baloyi—were officially charged with the crime and were subsequently granted bail of R1,000 each by the Groblersdal Magistrate's Court on November 29, 2017. One of the accused men, Thomas Baloyi, was later shot and killed on February 14, 2018, during a separate, unrelated attempted farm attack in Kalkfontein outside Groblersdal.