Jacques Freitag won the gold medal in the men’s high jump final at the 9th IAAF World Athletics Championship in 2003 in Paris. Right: A more recent photo of the former high jumper which was used on his missing persons poster. Pictures: Gallo Images/ Tertius Pickard and Supplied
News of the brutal murder of former world high jump champion Jacques Freitag continues to make national and international headlines as new details emerge around the shocking case.
The 42-year-old Freitag’s body was found riddled with multiple gunshot wounds on Monday afternoon, 1 July in a field near Zandfontein cemetery in the Pretoria West neighbourhood of Andeon.
The lanky former top athlete was reported as missing two weeks ago after he was picked up by an unknown man from the Bronkhorstspruit home of his mother, Hendrina Pieters, at around 1am on Monday, 17 June.
The unemployed Freitag apparently got into the mystery man’s vehicle to do “a job,” from which he initially stood to make a handsome sum of R60 000.
Netwerk24 reported that he was, however, only paid R6 000 at the time of his disappearance because he “failed to do the job properly”.
The man allegedly dropped the one-time golden boy of South African athletics off at a bridge in Booysens. Freitag was last seen alive when he left a guesthouse in Pretoria West the following day.
Staff at the guesthouse, situated about 4 km from the Zandfontein cemetery, told Maroela Media that the “tall man” was dropped off six hours after he was picked up from his mother’s home.
They said the well-spoken Freitag, with his towering frame of 2.04 metres, made quite the impression when he walked through the door at about 7am. He was dressed in a long-sleeve jacket, denim pants, and takkies.
The retired high jumper, who, according to his sister Chrissie Lewis, was battling drug addiction, apparently phoned the guesthouse at 6.45am to enquire about a room.
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One of the guesthouse employees said he WhatsApped the GPS location to the number from which Freitag was calling.
He then apparently replied that he had to return the phone to his “father” and asked for the coordinates to be sent to “his phone”.
Through tracing the number on the True Caller app, the publication has, however, found that the number Freitag provided is not registered in his name.
“He arrived with only R500 in his hand and a toiletry bag. Nothing else,” one of the staff members recalled.
He apparently told them that his girlfriend broke his phone when she threw it.
“When he told me that, I just assumed that he was booking in to take a break from his girlfriend,” the worker said.
Freitag booked in for one night before heading to his room. He only emerged again later that day, at about 3pm.
Guesthouse workers say that during the rest of the day and the evening, he was constantly in and out of his room to smoke in the atrium.
The next morning, he enquired about whether there were any calls from the man who dropped him off.
Throughout the morning, Freitag allegedly asked them to call the number he used the previous day to phone the guesthouse.
All the calls went unanswered and at 11am, he was asked to leave his room as per the establishment’s policy.
Freitag was, however, allowed to sit in the atrium.
“He sat there smoking on his own. After a while, he said that he was going to walk down the road to see whether the people who dropped him off, were in the vicinity. That was the last time we saw him,” the workers told Maroela Media.
Netwerk24 reported on Tuesday that a reliable source told the publication that Freitag was allegedly executed. One of the gunshot wounds was reportedly located in the back of his skull.
They claimed that a notorious drug dealer possibly played a role in the retired athlete’s disappearance and that he himself might have been involved in a hit gone wrong.
None of these allegations have been confirmed by the police, who are investigating a murder case.
According to Gauteng police spokesperson Brigadier Brenda Muridili, no arrests have been made and the motive for the murder is still unknown.
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Freitag is one of only 10 athletes to win world championship titles at the youth, junior, and senior levels of an athletic event.
Others featured in this exclusive golden circle of top-performing athletes include the likes of Usain Bolt, Veronica Campbell-Brown, and Kirani James.
The former high jumper was only 21 when he won the gold medal in the men’s high jump event by clearing a height of 2.35 m on 25 August 2003, to beat Sweden’s Stefan Holm at the IAAF World Athletics Championship in Paris.
He still holds the African record after clearing 2.38m, which he set in a competition in 2005.
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