Verkerk Willem Andrew "Andy"

Age 58. On the late evening of Wednesday, October 31, 2012, fifty-eight-year-old Willem Andrew Verkerk, known affectionately to his family and friends as Andy, was brutally murdered during a home invasion on his agricultural smallholding located at 318 Boundary Road within Walkers Fruit Farms, a rural community situated in Walkerville, south of Johannesburg, Gauteng. The tragedy began to unfold just after ten o'clock at night while Willem Andrew Verkerk was already asleep in his bed. Outside the farmhouse, the family dogs began barking aggressively. One of the dogs, which was inside the main house at the time, ran to the door and started scratching at it to be let out. Willem Andrew Verkerk's wife, Vivien Verkerk, went to investigate the noise, opened the interior door, and, seeing nothing immediately suspicious through the glass, unlocked the external security gate to let the dog out into the yard. The moment the security gate was unlocked, a gang of armed robbers ambushed Vivien Verkerk at the doorway. The attackers grabbed her tightly by the arm, forced her backward into the residence, spun her around, and threw her violently onto the ground where they bound her limbs. The home invaders explicitly threatened the family, shouting that they were going to shoot them and kill everyone in the house before demanding to know exactly how many people were inside the dwelling. The criminals then proceeded into the bedroom where they aggressively dragged Willem Andrew Verkerk out of his bed. In a cold-blooded execution right in front of his traumatized wife, Vivien, and his elderly eighty-two-year-old mother, Eileen Verkerk, the attackers opened fire at short range. Willem Andrew Verkerk was shot five times, sustaining fatal wounds that caused him to die on the scene. Following the lethal shooting, the attackers turned their violence onto the surviving family members. Willem Andrew Verkerk's elderly mother, Eileen Verkerk, was brutally assaulted and beaten across her body with a pipe. The gang also assaulted his thirty-seven-year-old granddaughter, Candice Verkerk, who was present during the terrifying ordeal. After terrorizing the women, the robbers systematically ransacked the smallholding residence, loading their stolen loot into the family's own vehicles. The perpetrators fled Walkers Fruit Farms using two of the family's cars, escaping with a television set, multiple cellular phones, and various pieces of electronic and household equipment.