Daughter flees farm attackers after father is killed

Crystal Dawson (28) ran through bushes and an electric fence to flag down motorists after her father, Peter Dawson, was shot and killed by the three attackers in their house in Broederstroom, North West, near the African Swiss restaurant.

The Kormorant reports that Dawson and Crystal were watching television around 1am when Crystal went outside to smoke. Three armed men overpowered her and forced her back into the house. According to police spokesperson Col Amanda Funani, the suspects demanded money and, when Dawson tried to negotiate with them to let his daughter go, they shot him in the chest.

The robbers spent more than 30 minutes in the house, ransacking it.

“The robbers then dragged Crystal to the bedroom where they tried to tie her up. She somehow managed to escape and ran for her life,” Dawson’s older daughter Chanti (30) told the Kormorant.

“She ran through the bushes and crawled through an electric fence before she reached the road (R512) and tried to flag down motorists. Finally a couple stopped and took her to a fuel station from where Crystal called us. We rushed back to the house and I was first on the scene but my father was dead.”

Dawson’s three daughters were visiting him for the weekend. Chanti and her younger sister went out on Saturday night while Crystal stayed with her father.

“The attackers told Crystal that they had been watching us for a while and knew my sister and I were out. They said they had been waiting for us to return.”

The robbers fled with, among other things, a safe containing a pistol and jewellery, television sets, a laptop, cash and other belongings. Some of the goods, packed in boxes, were later recovered on the property. The attackers marked the electric fence where they entered and exited.

According to Van der Spuy, the suspects had cut the electric fence and also broken into domestic quarters on the property.

The Hartbeespoort police are investigating a case of house robbery and murder.