Читать книгу Charlize - Chris Karsten - Страница 11

In 1991 Rooi Rose (later rooi rose), a Johannesburg-based Afrikaans maga-zine chiefly aimed at female readers, held a competition for aspiring models. The winner would be given the opportunity to take part in an international modelling competition, New Model Today, in Italy. One of Rooi Rose’s conditions was that the winner had to be a model of stature, or one with great potential, as she would be required to represent South Africa abroad.

A life as a model is the dream of many a young girl, and with Charles and Gerda’s approval, the fifteen-year-old Charlize entered the competition.

By this time serious cracks were showing in her parents’ marriage and the family were aware of it, especially Charles’s sister Elsa Malan, who lived with her family only a few blocks from the Therons in Cloverdene.

The two sisters-in-law, Gerda and Elsa, had had a long and close friendship, and were almost like sisters. It went back to their young days in South-West Africa, when Gerda had left school and moved in with the Therons.

Today Elsa (divorced in the meantime) lives in George in the Southern Cape and, with her two sons, upholds the family tradition of hard work. They operate a successful family business, renting out heavy construction machinery, also to the mining industry up north. Elsa also has a daughter, now finished with school, who many people consider to be even more beautiful than her older cousin, Charlize. She has albums filled with newspaper clippings and photos of Charlize, and the cousins keep hoping that one day they will be reunited with Charlize.

In numerous conversations Elsa has talked openly about the lives and fates of the family, presenting me with a chronicle, warts and all. What hurts the family, what they don’t understand, is why Gerda and Charlize summarily cut their ties with the Therons. Moreover, why Charlize’s father was presented to the international media as an alcoholic and a scoundrel, initially even accused of assaulting his wife and daughter.

Elsa’s version of the domestic tragedy differs from that of Charlize, who had never mentioned it before 2000. Elsa remembers how she often used to lie on their bed with Charles and Gerda, chatting. Charles would read the paper, or sometimes peel oranges for them while they were talking. He liked to eat his oranges with salt. (In Hollywood Hills, Charlize likes to make freshly squeezed orange juice from the oranges that grow in her own garden.) But Elsa also admits that her brother, like other males in her family (even those related by marriage), liked to party around a bottle. And where there is drink, one can expect trouble.

As a prelude to the fatal events, Elsa goes back to Sunday, 16 June 1991. She and Gerda took their children to the church next to the primary school, as was their custom. After the service, Elsa and Gerda waited outside in the winter sun while their children attended Sunday school. Elsa knew that Gerda was worried about her marriage and asked whether it wouldn’t be better if she and Charles got divorced. Gerda replied that she felt she had to stay for Charlize’s sake, and, besides, she added, the finances of the business were too complicated.

The next Thursday, Charles attended an auction in Pretoria, where there was heavy machinery for sale. He ate two meat pies and arrived at his sister’s house with a fish – a snoek, as a matter of fact. He asked Elsa to give the fish to Gerda. Late in the afternoon Elsa drove to Gerda’s house with the fish. Gerda was unresponsive, didn’t want the fish, rejected Charles’s peace offering. That evening Charles dined in a restaurant with some business associates and his brother Danie.

The next afternoon, Friday, 21 June 1991, Gerda took Charlize to a studio in Johannesburg to have photographs taken for the portfolio she would need to enter the Rooi Rose modelling competition. Charles didn’t want to go along and chose to spend the afternoon at his sister’s house instead. His brother Danie and his wife, Engela, had come from Kuruman for a visit. When Danie came to visit, he always stayed with his sister Elsa, for he and Gerda did not get along.

Danie had bought a new pickup and he took Charles for a drive. On their way back they stopped at a bottle store in Rynfield for a 20-ml bottle of Underberg, a bitter herbal drink used as an aperitif. Charles complained of a headache and said that the pies he had eaten the previous day had upset his stomach. He hoped the Underberg would help. Danie bought a bottle of vodka.

Back at Elsa’s place, the family sat around the kitchen table: Danie and his wife, Engela, and Elsa and the kids. Elsa’s husband, Jacques, was away on a business trip. Everyone was in high spirits. The boys, especially, liked to listen to Charles’s stories. He liked to regale them with tales about hunting and animals. That evening the kids were entranced as he demonstrated how little birds are fed by their mothers. In the early evening, amid all the chatter, Elsa and Engela made coffee and sandwiches. Danie poured vodka for himself and for Charles. Charles also drank the Underberg for his stomach.

That was how Elsa described the scene around her kitchen table during the first part of that evening, which would end so tragically. This scene of everyday domesticity differs drastically from the speculation by journalist and author Lin Sampson, in an essay in her book Now You’ve Gone and Killed Me. The Therons consider it just another attempt to portray them as a clan of unsophisticated plot dwellers, whom Charlize and Gerda were lucky to escape from; plot dwellers with a pickup in the driveway, eating Vienna sausages and biltong for supper.

“The drink lent an air of drama and bravado to a night in which past hurts fluttered like wounded birds,” Sampson wrote. “Perhaps they remembered that Gerda had once threatened – as Engela later testified – to shoot Danie and Charles and spread their brains on the walls. Perhaps they were aware that Engela felt Charles was married to a ‘possessive woman’ who had him ‘under her thumb’, as she also told the hearing. They might have talked, too, of all the times Charles had been locked out of his own house.”

According to Elsa, the family decided to let it be, not to persist in trying to give their side of the story to counter all the untruths being sent into the world. It would just bring them further hurt.

She tells how Gerda and Charlize stopped in front of the house after the photo session at about half past nine that Friday evening. Gerda stood in the kitchen door and asked Charles for their house key. He invited her in, asked her to wait five minutes, and they could drive home together. But Gerda didn’t want to sit down, and said that she and Charlize were leaving. She walked out with the key.

When Charlize came out of the toilet, having followed her mother inside, Charles asked her why she hadn’t greeted anybody on her way in. He had taught her good manners, she was supposed to greet people when she entered a room, especially her own family. But Charlize followed her mother outside.

The atmosphere in the kitchen was suddenly tense. Charles was upset, the jovial mood had been spoilt. He went to the telephone on the kitchen wall and phoned home. He talked to Charlize. Elsa and the rest of the fami-ly could hear that Charles was upset. He slammed the phone down. If she locked him out again, he threatened, he was going to shoot the lock to pieces. He had a small .22 pistol with him that he had borrowed from a friend because he was considering buying it from him.

Elsa told him not to be stupid, and advised him to sleep in the caravan if he needed to. She remembers that he put a comforting hand on her shoulder and asked his brother Danie to take him home in his new pickup. To reach his house, just four street blocks away, they had to drive up Cloverdene Road and make a right turn into Seventh Road. Number 56 was a few hundred metres along, on the left side of the street, hidden behind a high wall and trees.

As they walked out, Charles asked Elsa whether he could sleep at her house if Gerda had locked him out. The caravan was too cold, he said.

She laughed and assured him that she would always have room for him.

Charles walked out, wearing his leather jacket against the cold. Danie went along reluctantly, for he and Gerda avoided each other.

Elsa says her two brothers had barely been gone ten minutes when an alarmed worker came to call them, speaking about a shooting at Charles’s house. Elsa and Engela hurried to Seventh Road and found Gerda in the kitchen. She was leaning against the stove, clad in her winter pyjamas. Elsa smelt gunpowder and asked Gerda: “What happened? Where’s Charles?”

Gerda answered: “In the bedroom . . .”

When Elsa reached the main bedroom, Charles was lying on his stomach between the bed and the wardrobe with its yellow doors, at the entrance to the en-suite bathroom. She saw blood on the back of his leather jacket. She knelt and turned his head to look at his face. She called out his name. Under her hand his face was still warm. His glasses were broken.

Shortly afterwards the police and a doctor arrived. Charlize was sitting in the lounge, covered with a blanket, weeping and shocked. She was in her pyjamas too.

Charles died just after ten that evening. He was forty-three years old.

Detective Sergeant Hendrik Delport of the Putfontein detective branch took charge of the investigation. Blood samples were taken from Charles, sketches made at the scene, and a police photographer photographed Charles’s body. I later saw the photos in the police docket. The doctor had turned him around during a futile resuscitation attempt, so that Charles was now lying on his back.

At a quarter to midnight that evening the police removed his body.

On Saturday, Charles’s mother, Bettie, came from Kuruman to Elsa’s house and on Sunday she was taken to her son’s house. She wanted to form her own opinion of what had happened there and questioned Gerda and Charlize about the tragic events of the Friday evening.

The police registered a case of culpable homicide and on Monday, 24 June 1991, the police began to take sworn statements from all those involved. Bettie also gave a statement, concerning her conversations with Gerda and Charlize.

Charlize signed each page of her handwritten statement. Both she and Gerda declared that Charles had been drunk and had wanted to shoot them with a shotgun.

The following statements are a truthful translation of the statements as they were taken down and made available to me from the police docket.

Charlize’s statement read:

I, Miss Charlize Theron, a white female of fifteen years old, living at Plot 56, 7th Road, Cloverdene, tel [omitted], High School Die Kruin, Johannesburg, std 8, declare:

On Friday 1991–06–21 at about 21:30 my mother and I arrived at our home. We looked for the house key. We have a special place where we hide it, but we could not find the key.

We then went to Mrs Malan at the corner of Cloverdene Road and Third Road. When we arrived there, my father (the deceased) and his brother, Mr Danie Theron, were there.

They were sitting in the kitchen and they were drinking liquor. I am not certain exactly what kind of liquor they were drinking.

My mother asked my father for the key. I could hear that my father was aggressive towards my mother, but she got the key of the house, and went back to our vehicle alone.

Then I heard my father’s brother, Danie Theron, say to my father: “Why do you take her shit?”

They spoke some more, but I couldn’t hear exactly what was being said. I left the house and returned home with my mother. After we had arrived home, my mother locked all the doors carefully.

We put on our pyjamas and then the telephone rang. My mother said that we should not answer it. We let the phone ring. After a very long time the phone stopped ringing. Immediately afterwards it began to ring again. I picked up the phone then.

It was my father. He began to argue with me again and asked why I had not greeted the people. I wanted to explain to him that I hadn’t seen the other people. But he kept raising his voice. Then he asked where my mother was. He said: “Where’s that bloody bitch?”

I asked him to stop talking like that, please. He said: “Fuck you all!” He said it quite a few times and then he threw down the phone.

I told my mother that I was afraid. She tried to keep me calm. At that point someone hammered on the kitchen door. I told my mother that it was my father and that I was afraid of him.

I got into bed and told my mother to tell my father that I was asleep. I switched off the light.

My mother went to the kitchen. I heard my mother open the kitchen door, but the safety door was still locked. I heard him (my father) ask my mother why she had not left the door open for him. My mother answered that she and I were alone. Then my father began to curse and swear. I had never heard him swear like that. My mother told him that he was scaring her and that she had never seen him like that.

At that he shouted that if she did not open the door he was going to shoot her dead. I heard the door being slammed. Then a shot rang out. My mother ran down the passage. I heard her wardrobe door opening. The next moment she stormed into my bedroom. Another shot rang out.

Then we heard my father hammer on the door [of Charlize’s bedroom]. My mother pushed the door shut. He tried to push the door open. The next moment another shot rang out. It went right through my bedroom door and through my window.

At that my father said he was going to shoot both of us dead with his shotgun. I heard him go to the main bedroom.

My mother said she was scared he was going to kill us. Then she also left the room. The next minute I heard a lot of shots. I don’t know how many, but it was a lot. Then I heard my mother scream. It was a hysterical scream. I came out of my room too.

When I got to the passage, I saw my father’s brother, Danie Theron, there. My mother sat in a corner of the bedroom. I ran to her and asked: “What happened?” My mother was crying and said: “Charlize, I shot them, I shot them.” Then I saw my father’s body on the floor next to the bed. There was blood too.

I shouted to my mother that we had to get away. I grabbed the keys of one of our vehicles. When I came outside, I saw my father’s brother getting into his pickup.

My mother shouted: “Go and call Uncle Wick (our neighbour)!” So I did. He phoned the police.

The body did not sustain any further wounds or injuries in my presence. I also want to mention that at no point did my mother drink any alcohol. She was sober.

I am familiar with and understand the contents of the statement. I have no objection to the oath. I consider the oath binding to my conscience.

In many respects Gerda’s statement corresponds with Charlize’s. (They were at home alone when Charles arrived and the shooting began.)

I, Mrs Gerda Jacoba Alletta [sic] Theron, a white female, ID [omitted], living at Plot 56, 7th Road, Cloverdene, tel. [omitted], own business at Plot 56, 7th Road, Cloverdene, declare under oath:

On Friday 1991–06–21 at about 21:30 my daughter, Charlize, and I arrived at our home at the above address. When we arrived there, we could not find our house key where we usually left it.

Thereupon we went to Mrs Malan at the corner of Cloverdene Road and Third Road, Cloverdene. When we arrived there, I found my late husband, Charles Jacobus Theron, ID [omitted], there, drinking with his brother, Mr Danie Theron. I am not sure what it was [they were drinking]. I noticed, however, that his speech was slurred and I could see from his face that he had been drinking. His face was very red.

I asked him where our house key was. He told me to wait, as he just wanted to finish his drink.

But we did not want to wait. Mrs Malan gave me the key to our house, and I returned to our vehicle. My daughter joined me and we went home.

At home I unlocked the doors and then locked them again securely, and we put on our pyjamas. Soon afterwards the telephone began to ring. I told my daughter not to pick it up. After a long while the telephone stopped ringing. Immediately afterwards it began to ring again. My daughter then picked it up, and I concluded that she was talking to my husband. He argued with her and after a while he hung up on her.

At about 22:00 on the same date I heard a hammering on the kitchen door. My daughter was afraid and got into bed. I went to the kitchen, where I unlocked the door. The safety door was still locked. My late husband and his brother were both outside the door.

My late husband began to swear terribly and asked me why I had locked the door. I answered that we were at home alone. He said he wanted money. I told him I would go and fetch money. He said: “Open the door or I’ll shoot you dead.” I pushed the door shut and almost immediately he fired a shot with a firearm that he had in his hand.

The firearm was a .22 pistol, Astra no. [omitted]. The firearm belongs to [omitted]. My husband was in the process of buying the firearm from [omitted].

Then he said to me: “Oh, you think I can’t get inside the house!”

I ran to the bedroom and took my .38 Taurus Special revolver Serial no. [omitted], which belongs to me, out of my wardrobe. Then I went to my daughter’s room.

Soon afterwards my husband, who had got inside the house very quickly, began to hammer on the door [of Charlize’s room]. I pushed the door shut. I heard another shot and later saw that the bullet had gone through the bedroom door and out through the window.

He shouted: “Tonight I’ll shoot both of you dead with the shotgun!” Then he went to the bedroom. I was very frightened and feared for my daughter’s and my own life.

I ran after him to the bedroom. I began to fire at him. I don’t know how many shots I fired. I saw him fall.

When I turned, I saw his brother behind me and instinctively I fired another shot in his direction. His brother fell too.

Then my daughter came out of her room to help me. We were both crying.

My daughter went to call our neighbours and they summoned the police.

Later I identified the body to Detective Sergeant Delport as that of Mr Charles Jacobus Theron.

The body sustained no further wounds or injuries in my presence.

I am familiar with the contents of this statement.

Danie Theron waited outside after Charles had forced open the door of the bar. Only when he heard shots being fired inside did he go in. His statement read:

I, Mr Daniël Theron, a white man 36 years old, residing at [omitted], Kuruman, tel. [omitted], own business, declare under oath:

On Friday 1991–06–21 at about 15:30 my brother Mr Charles Theron (the deceased) phoned me and asked me to pay him a visit. At that stage I was staying with our sister at Plot 25, Cloverdene.

At first I did not want to go, as Charles’s wife, Mrs Gerda Theron, and I do not see eye to eye. He said that she had taken their daughter away and was not there at the moment. There-upon I went to his house at Plot 56, 7th Road, Cloverdene.

I stayed there for a short while and then we returned to Plot 25, Cloverdene.

When we arrived there, I quickly got my [new] pickup ready and then asked Charles to take a test drive with me. While we were driving, we made a quick stop at a bottle store at Rynfield [in Benoni] and bought a bottle of vodka, as well as a 20 ml bottle of Underberg, which Charles wanted to drink for his headache. We returned to Plot 25, Cloverdene.

Back at the house, Charles drank the small bottle of Underberg. Then I poured each of us a glass of vodka and we sat at the table, talking. During our conversation I realised that my brother was under a great deal of pressure and wanted to take a break for a few days.

During the entire evening Charles had only 2 small glasses of vodka.

At about 21:15, while we were still talking, Charles’s wife, Mrs Gerda Theron, and his daughter, Charlize, arrived.

Charlize entered without greeting anyone and went directly to the toilet. Mrs Theron didn’t come in but stood at the door and asked for the key of their house. Charles told her that he had the key. He invited her to come in and sit down. He would only be another 5 minutes. She said that he [unclear] and that she would not come in.

My wife gave Mrs Theron the key. She left. Charles’s daughter walked out, again without saying goodbye to anyone. They left. Charles asked his wife not to lock him out again. I could see that Charles was upset.

When I showed him a Father’s Day card my children had made for me, he became even more upset.

Then he picked up the telephone and phoned his house. The telephone rang for a while before it was answered. I concluded that it was his daughter, Charlize, who had answered.

I heard Charles ask Charlize why she had not greeted anyone. I concluded that she was answering back, at which Charles became very angry and shouted: “Man, fuck you and your mother!” Then he slammed down the telephone.

He sat down again but about 15 minutes later he decided to leave. He asked me to take him home. At first I was reluctant and I gave him the keys to my pickup so that he could drive himself. He insisted that I take him home.

While we were driving, he remarked that he would probably be staring down the barrel of the 12-bore again tonight.

I also want to mention that Mrs Theron had threatened to shoot me on previous occasions.

When we arrived at his house, he invited me to come in for a drink. I did not want to, for I did not want to cause any more trouble, but Charles insisted.

When we got to the porch, he said that his wife had locked him out again. He tugged at the door, but nobody came to open it. Then he said: “Tonight I’m going to shoot this lock off the door.” He fired a shot at the lock. Then he pulled at the sliding door.

Then he fired a shot into the ground. At no stage did Mrs Theron open the door or shout anything. At this point I told Charles to stop and tried to hold him back, but he pulled free and said: “Leave me alone.”

I was scared and decided it would be safer to wait outside. I was standing almost right next to the pickup, where it was dark. I could hear Charles tug at the sliding door again. At this point he managed to get the [sliding] door open and I could hear the door open.

Immediately afterwards I heard a shot being fired. I was afraid and began to approach the house. When I reached the door on the porch, I heard a second shot, and then more shots. I’m not sure exactly how many shots I heard.

I realised that there was serious trouble and I ran in through the sliding door.

When I turned the corner into the passage, I saw Mrs Theron standing in the doorway to their bedroom. She looked at me. The revolver was still in her hand.

When she saw me, she raised the firearm immediately and fired at me. I held up my hands and dived sideways into a corner of the passage. Then I realised that she had hit me. I lay still and pretended to be dead. Mrs Theron walked up to me – I could hear her footsteps – and stood still. Then she turned and ran back to the bedroom. I looked up and saw her entering the room again.

I jumped up immediately and ran out. I was wounded in my left hand. At one stage blood was spurting from the wound.

I wanted to get away and when I got outside I heard Charlize give a terrible scream. Immediately afterwards I heard another shot. I just ran. The keys of my pickup were inside the house where I had dropped them.

Later the police visited the scene and took over.

Elsa Malan was the first one to reach her brother’s body in the bedroom and she declared:

I, Mrs Elizabeth Johanna Malan, a white female, aged 31, residing and working at Plot 25, c/o Cloverdene Road and Third Road, Cloverdene, tel. [omitted], declare under oath:

On Friday 1991–21–06 at about 15:30 my brother, Mr Charles Theron of Plot 56, Seventh Road, Cloverdene, phoned my other brother, Danie, who was staying with us at the time, and asked Danie to come and visit him [Charles]. A short while later Danie left to go to Charles Theron at Plot 56, 7th Road, Cloverdene.

Soon afterwards Charles and Danie returned to our plot. Danie showed Charles his new pickup and they took a drive.

When they returned, Charles had a small bottle of Underberg with him. He said he had a terrible headache and that he would drink the Underberg as it would take away the headache. He didn’t drink much more liquor apart from that.

A short while afterwards I took a bath and heard someone talk in here [in the kitchen]. I took no notice of it and after I had finished my bath, I was told that Charles’s wife had been here. It was Mrs G. Theron and her daughter Miss C. Theron.

I asked Charles why Charlize, his daughter, had not come inside. He told me that she had indeed come inside, but that she had greeted no one, only used the toilet and walked out again.

There had previously been arguments between Danie and Mrs Theron.

Then Charles decided to phone his daughter. He phoned her and at first he spoke to her nicely and asked why she had been so rude to her relatives.

I heard Charlize screaming at Charles. I also heard Mrs Theron screaming in the background.

Then Charles became very angry and said: “Tell that fucking bitch to shut up, and fuck you too.” He slammed down the phone. He was noticeably upset.

Some time later Charles and Danie drove to Mrs Theron and Charles’s house. At first Danie did not want to go along because he and Mrs Theron did not see eye to eye at all. But Charles insisted that he should go along.

Soon afterwards we received the news that there had been a shooting and we left for Charles’s plot immediately.

When we arrived there, we found the deceased, Charles, in the [main] bedroom. Danie was not there at the time.

In my presence the body sustained no further wounds or injuries.

In her statement about the conversation she had had with Gerda and Charlize on Sunday, when she had gone to their house to see where her son had died, Bettie Moolman said:

I, Mrs Elizabeth Johanna Moolman, a white female residing at [omitted], Kuruman, tel. [omitted], declare under oath:

On Sunday 1991–06–23 I was at Plot 25, Cloverdene, with my daughter, Mrs Malan. The deceased in the case, Mr C. Theron, was my son.

On [Sunday] 1991–06–23 Mrs [Gerda] Theron phoned me and asked me to come to her house. She is the wife of the deceased, my daughter-in-law.

When I arrived at Plot 56, Cloverdene, Mrs Theron invited me in and we began to talk. I asked Mrs Theron to tell me what had really happened there on the [Friday] evening of 1991–06–21.

Mrs Theron said that the deceased had been furious because they had locked him out of his own house and because his daughter had allegedly not greeted him when he had been with family earlier that evening.

She also said that the deceased and Danie Theron had been drunk.

Then I asked her to show me how everything had happened. First she showed me the kitchen door where the deceased had wanted to come in. She said that she had not wanted to open the door for him and that he had then fired a shot.

After that she showed me the door of the bar and said that the deceased had forced open the [sliding] door.

We walked on and in an alcove in the passage [I] saw that someone had been cleaning. I asked Mrs Theron whether that was the place where she had shot Danie. She answered affirmatively.

Then we went to the main bedroom where the shooting had taken place. I noticed that there were several blood stains that were covered with sheets.

Mrs Theron said: “Ma, he was the strongest man. He wouldn’t fall.”

She [unclear] her hands in the air and said: “Dear God, help me to give him one more shot so that he will fall.”

Then we went back to her office. There I asked the deceased’s daughter, Charlize, why she had not greeted the deceased at the family’s house before the incident. Then the incident might not have happened.

Charlize looked at her mother and asked: “Am I getting all the blame now?” Then she jumped up and ran outside. She was crying.

After a while Charlize came back.

I asked Mrs Theron why she had not rather divorced the deceased if she had hated him so much. She pointed at Charlize and said: “You know very well, Ma, it was for the child’s sake.”

I then told them about another incident when Mrs Theron had locked the deceased out of the house. He drove to me in Kuruman. The day before he returned home, I found him crying in his room. He told me that he was afraid to go back. He did not want to hear all the recriminations and bad things. Then he left.

There were still unanswered questions, however, like why she had not summoned help after she had shot him, or why [she had] not run away after he had begun to stagger.

Furthermore I also want to say: For the past 20 years my son the deceased has always been Mrs Theron’s inferior. She is a very bad-tempered person and she never took anyone’s feelings into account.

We attach a lot of importance to family ties, which she considers ridiculous. She is an outspoken person, with little regard for family, even her own.

He, my son, was never violent towards her, as far as I know. She, on the other hand, was often violent towards him.

(The statements of the worker Joseph Gawele and Lance Sergeant Anton Koen, the first policeman on the scene, can be found in the Notes.)

Later Jaivanti Bhana, a forensic analyst, tested the blood sample taken from Charles and found that his blood alcohol level had been 0,21 g per 100 ml. It proved that he had indeed drunk considerably more than the two small glasses of vodka that Danie had mentioned in his statement.