Smith Elizabeth “Lilly”

The couple, who had relocated to the South Cape two years prior from Lydenburg in Mpumalanga to seek a peaceful retirement near the ocean, were subjected to an ambush inside their farmhouse homestead. The intruders bound the couple securely with rope and subjected them to severe physical torture and beatings, leaving extensive deep bruising all across their bodies. Jan Smith was repeatedly bludgeoned over the head with heavy objects and suffered multiple stab wounds across his body before succumbing to a fatal head injury in the bedroom. Elizabeth Lilly Smith was dragged into the lounge area where she was tortured and ultimately impaled through the chest with a steel garden fork, which responding emergency workers found still tightly lodged deep inside her chest cavity when the scene was discovered. The farmhouse was completely turned upside down and ransacked by the attackers, who looted personal electronics, cellphones, a camera bag, jewellery, clothes, a briefcase, and banking bags containing cash coins before abandoning the property. The decomposing bodies lay undiscovered inside the locked residence until Thursday, 14 October 2010, when a traumatized family friend arrived at the smallholding to check on them after they failed to answer continuous phone calls. An intensive investigation was launched by the Western Cape provincial unit against organized crime along with the Hawks. Following up on localized intelligence footprints, police executed a raid at a residential property in the Kwanokuthula township near Plettenberg Bay on Monday, 18 October 2010. During the raid, detectives successfully arrested two primary suspects identified as Eric Vakele, aged 32, and Mahalomolo Mosito, aged 37. A search of their house uncovered a hoard of the victims' stolen property, including their clothes, camera equipment, the briefcase, and the banking coin bags. Both suspects were formally charged with two counts of murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances. The men appeared before the Stilbaai Circuit Court on Friday, 28 January 2011, where their respective legal representatives confirmed they would abandon their bail applications.