STEELPOORT – A professional hunter shot dead two burglars in a suburb on the outskirts of town just before 04:00 on Tuesday morning. One of them still clutched a nine-millimetre pistol in his hand while a .38 revolver was found mere centimetres from the dead body of his accomplice.
Mr Wayne Farmer fired four single shots from his shotgun after a gang of five burglars broke into his neighbour’s house. The bodies of two of them were discovered at dawn next to a fence of the property.
The incident occurred at 03:40. Farmer’s dog was barking continuously. This raised suspicion in Farmer who went to his stoep to investigate why the dog was barking. The next moment a neighbour’s house alarm was triggered. Farmer knew nobody was home.
His neighbour had asked him to keep an eye on his property while he was away. He went to fetch his 12-gauge single-barrel shotgun out of a safe. Farmer loaded it with a cartridge and went next door to investigate. As he walked around a corner of the neighbour’s house he found someone standing outside.
“I shouted at him and asked what he was doing there. The person then turned around and ran away. Two other burglars jumped out of the window and started to fire shots at me. I quickly fell to the ground to take cover while I was trying to fire back in the direction of the gun shots with only four rounds that I had with me. Another two men also jumped out of the window shooting towards me while they were running away. It was then that I realised it was four armed burglars against me and I had no ammunition left,” Farmer told Lowvelder.
He ran back home, locked the doors and phoned the police. Red Security was the first on the scene in response to the alarm. Moments later the police arrived.
Farmer also notified the neighbour. He arrived at the scene shortly afterwards. “The police investigated the scene, but only at sunrise did they discover two bodies next to the fence of the neighbour’s property. The other three had escaped on foot,” added a resident.
According to Farmer the instincts honed by his training as a hunter and his experiences on hunts kicked in when the first shots were fired. One bullet hit a wall about
50 centimetres above his head. Police are investigating the burglary and the shooting of the two men.
“According to standard law procedures we must open a murder case against the man for shooting the two burglars. He was not taken into custody as we are still investigating the scene to determine if it was self-defence.
“A court case is not scheduled yet as he is not arrested. We will only now the outcome of the case by next week. Until then he will not be arrested while investigations are continuing,” said Lt Col Ronel Otto, Limpopo police spokesman. The eyewitness said houses in that area were frequently targeted and he hoped this would be a lesson to criminals to stay away from property that does not belong to them.
