RedHanded - Episode 244 - The Van Breda Family Axe Murders

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

When police rushed to respond to a triple murder in one of South Africa’s most exclusive gated communities, it seemed as though Henri van Breda had had a lucky escape. They found him standing on his family lawn, dead-eyed and covered in blood and urine. According to the neighbours, he had been eerily waving to them while he waited for the police. All understandable, when three of your loved ones have been hacked to death by an axe-wielding maniac. But as police dug further into the burglary-turned-homicide, things just weren't adding up... Become a patron: Patreon Order a copy of the book here (US & Canada): Order on Wellesley Books Order on Amazon.com Order a copy of the book here (UK, Ireland, Europe, NZ, Aus): Order on Amazon.co.uk Order on Foyles Follow us on social media: Instagram Twitter Visit our website: Website Contact us: Contact See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. Yeah, here we are again. In our bunker.

In our brick bunker in East London. I've done something horrible to my shoulder, so if you hear me weeping in pain, it's because I'm desperately unhappy. Yeah, and not just because of life, because her shoulder hurts. But are you, dear listener, feeling desperately unhappy, even though you're listening to RedHanded, your favourite ever podcast? Well, don't worry about it, because we have some exciting news. We are relaunching all of the favourites, all of the classic Red Handed merch.

We've had a lot of people being like, hey, I'm a brand new listener, and you haven't done merch in fucking ages. Can I get some spooky bitch wear? Can I get some not in this economy tote bags t-shirts hoodies the answer is yes you can you can have all of it so you're gonna have spooky bitch you're gonna have no fuck boys and you're gonna get not in this economy what else could you possibly ask for i don't fucking know it's not christmas it's not your birthday but it is the day you should buy the merch precisely so for all the details on that please head on on over to redhandedshop.com

for all your merch desires. Merch needs. It can all be fulfilled. Exactly. So that's it. Shall we crack on? If I say no. Then I'm going to turn everything off

and go have a lie down for two hours. Ah, the Hannah McGuire classic. But I know you won't, Hannah, because I know that you are actually, in fact, incredibly excited to talk. I am actually pretty excited to talk about South Africa. To talk about South Africa, exactly. Because, yes, we are off to the south of Africa. The southiest south of Africa as you can ever south. Because at 7.12am on the 27th of January 2015,

police in Cape Town received an emergency call. The man on the other end said he was calling from Stellenbosch and that he needed their help. He said that his entire family had been killed by an intruder with an axe and the operator who actually picked up the phone call thought that the whole thing was a prank phone call at first. But when the police arrived,

they found a young man standing in the street, covered in blood, holding a mobile phone. The man pointed at the house behind him and said, the problem is upstairs. And there certainly was a problem upstairs, because on the top floor of the house, the two attending officers found a scene that they would both go on to describe as the worst they'd ever encountered in their careers. And I think for a country known to have quite a lot of violent crime, for police officers and paramedics who attended this scene to say that, tells you quite a lot. When they went upstairs, in the first bedroom they entered,

they discovered a man hanging off a bed. His body showed signs of hacking, and he was completely soaked in blood. On the floor of the same room, there was the mutilated body of another younger man laying face down. And in the hallway, just past this room, the police discovered a middle-aged woman, covered in the same savage gashes. And beside her, lay a young girl. The girl had major injuries to her head, with the blood that had poured down her face having turned her blonde hair dark red. As the officers looked on in horror, they noticed something.

To their absolute shock, the girl moved. They screamed for the paramedics. The two policemen continued walking through the house, tightly gripping their guns. What if the killer was still inside? But after a thorough sweep, they found no one. In fact, there was no sign of any break-in or out. The next day, with headlines like, Family at Dezalza hacked to death with an axe,

Child survives, dominating the media. The police knew that this case was going to be enormous. The victims were the wealthy Van Breda family. Martin Van Breda had been an incredibly successful businessman. Teresa had worked in banking, and the two of them were happily married. And they adored their three children, 22-year-old Rudy, 20-year-old Henry, and 16-year-old Marley. The Van Breda's, as their name probably gives the game away, were originally from South Africa,

but in 2008 they had moved to Australia for Martin's work, and they spent eight happy years there. During those eight years, Martin's business absolutely boomed. He had so much money, he decided to start a school back in South Africa, which he later sold for 220 million rand. The van Breda boys were both top students at the University of Melbourne. Rudy was doing a master's in engineering, and Henry was finishing his undergrad in physics.

And the family remained close, even though two of the kids were grown up and in their 20s, they still all went on holidays together every year. So they looked like very much the perfect family. And I know that is very much a true crime trope. And they all lit up a room. They all lit up a room. They never slept with a window open. I don't know. I can't even remember all the tropes. But I know that saying, you know, from the outside, they were the perfect family. But really and truly, they are very much the quintessential perfect family. Not only because they're wealthy. I mean, Teresa has a really good job. Martin's an entrepreneur. He's incredibly successful. The kids are all healthy. The kids are all happy. They're all sporty and smart, popular, good looking. It's kind

of like, what more could you ask for in life than the things that the Van Breda's had? And then in 2014, the Van Breda family decided to move back to South Africa from Australia. The boys, however, stayed in Melbourne to finish uni, but Martin, Teresa and Marley headed home. And like we said at the start, there's no denying that South Africa has very high levels of violent crime. It's certainly not a super chill place to live. So the Van Breda's did what any wealthy, rich family would do. They moved into a two-story house in an exclusive gated community on the De Zalza golf course in Stellenbosch.

And this is very reminiscent of like the Oscar Pistorius case, for example. He lived in Pretoria, but lived in an incredibly exclusive, incredibly safe gated community. I would say I've been to Stellenbosch. Apparently, I've also driven past this specific estate, but I don't remember. But my friend just informed me before we came into the recording. Stellenbosch, it's not a collection of gated communities. And I feel like a lot of press makes it sound like it is. Quite a lot of the roads in Stellenbosch look like Wisteria Lane. So there are roads with just houses either side. It's not necessarily... Everything's behind a gated community.

I think people will sort of think of it as like a settlement, which it's not really. Yeah. And I obviously have never been to South Africa. I don't know too much about it. But what I tried to look into with Stellenbosch is how safe is it anyway? And apparently it's a relatively safe part of South Africa. Apparently it's a uni town and it's also South Africa's like main wine region. It's like the Stellenbosch University is like one of the top rated in the world.

It's an incredibly good university. There's a lot of boarding schools, a lot of rich people live there. Yeah. And I think when people are Googling about is Stellenbosch a safe place to live, it seems to be a lot of students who are wondering whether to go to university there. And all of the replies seem to be, you're very safe on campus, but if you don't walk around outside of campus late at night, it's just not a good idea.

Most likely you might be fine, but you're probably going to get mugged. That seems to be the general vibe. But it doesn't seem too much like the most worrying place you could live in South Africa. As Hannah said, it's a very affluent part of the country. And the Dazalza Gulf Estate within Stellenbosch is another level on top of that. It is incredibly exclusive. We're talking about an estate that is made up of multi-million dollar homes. And, as such, it's completely covered in CCTV. There's even an electric fence surrounding the entire plot.

And one of the detectives on the case even described the estate as Alcatraz. So it's pretty well secured. And the Van Breda house itself on the Daza Gulf estate was itself kitted out with top-of-the-range motion detectors and an alarm. So really, in the grand scheme of things, you couldn't think of a much more safe place to have been living. No, and I would argue that in a country like South Africa, almost everyone has, I mean, obviously, people who live in townships don't,

but like people living in places like Stellenbosch, everyone has home security systems like that. So it's not like home security companies in South Africa have no idea what they're doing. Yeah, exactly. And this is what you're paying for in a place like Dazalza. You're paying for that total peace of mind that comes with knowing that the entire estate is secured and your house is safe.

And the family also had a dog. They had a black Labrador called Sasha. So they're doing everything they possibly can. So when the bodies of the hacked-up van Breda's were discovered, no one could believe what had happened within the walls of this Stellenbosch fortress. Some officers suspected that it was the work of a notorious balaclava gang that had carried out a spate of burglaries in a nearby region. But typically, this gang left their victims tied up, and crucially, alive. And nothing seemed to have been taken from the van Breda house in this attack.

All the family's valuables were on the ground floor. And the gang were usually much more disciplined than this. So what was the point in massacring an entire family and leaving the act at the scene of the crime and not even taking anything? This is the thing. They would have had to bypass all of the valuables on the ground floor to go upstairs to murder an entire sleeping family with an axe. What would have been the point in that?

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It looked like it was brand new. They also found a kitchen knife upstairs, and they were hoping that they'd get lucky with DNA. Martin, Teresa and Rudy Bradar had all died in the house that night. Martin had suffered five axe blows to the back of his head and one to his neck. Teresa had been hit three times with the axe. Rudy had four deep wounds to his head.

Marley also had three gashes to the head and her jugular had been cut. Unbelievably, Marley was still alive and she was rushed immediately to hospital. No one knew if she'd survive or if she'd ever be able to talk again. And until that happened, if it happened, there was nothing they could do. They'd just have to wait to hear her story. But for now, at least the police had Henry, the middle son.

He was clearly traumatised. The neighbours had seen him waiting outside for the police apparently he'd even eerily waved at them as they watched him urinate himself on the front lawn what yeah so apparently he calls the emergency services and then when the police arrive they find him standing outside and he's covered in blood and apparently his shorts are covered in urine and the neighbours say that when they came out, because another neighbour had also called emergency services because like what the fuck's going on?

And when they watch him standing on the front lawn waiting for police, they say that they saw urine trickle down his leg as he was waving at them. So yeah, not good. Not good times. No, not good times at all. No. But in comparison to the rest of his family, who had been butchered with an axe,

Henry van Breda had been incredibly lucky, because he had sustained only superficial injuries, which consisted of some cuts to his arms and his torso. During his initial police interview, this is what Henry said had happened that night. He said that the family had all been having a good time, the boys were visiting from Australia because remember they're still both at uni in Melbourne, and that weekend the whole Van Breda clan had gone shark cage diving. The night of the attack they'd all had dinner together and then watched Star Wars 2. Apparently they'd had some wine, a bit of rum, it was just a chill evening because Rudy was heading back to uni the next week,

they're just taking it easy. Henry said that after everyone had gone to sleep he decided to stay up for a little while playing video games and also watching some anime about pirates. That's fine, why not? And he said that suddenly he needed to use the bathroom. So he'd gone to use the en suite that he shared with Rudy. So this is the en suite bathroom that is attached to the bedroom that the two boys share. And he said it was when he was in the toilet that he heard a noise. He said that he got up and looked through the bathroom door back into the bedroom. And this is when he saw an intruder.

He said that he saw a tall black man wearing a black balaclava and black gloves, attacking Rudy with an axe. Henry said that he froze with fear and that he couldn't move or do anything to help. Apparently, he eventually shouted, and shouted and his father Martin heard the attack and came running. Apparently this balaclavid man then killed his father before then moving on to his mum Teresa and his sister Marley who he killed in the hallway outside of the room. At this point Henry said he finally came out of the bathroom and fought the man who was apparently laughing the entire time

during the struggle the man couldn't swing the axe because henry said he was holding onto his arm so the man suddenly pulled a knife out of nowhere and slashed at henry and this is how he had got cuts on his torso and his arms he said that the man then dropped the axe dropped the knife and ran out of the house with nothing to show for his several murders. No, he's just murdered four people, but he's not stolen anything, and he's left a witness behind. Henry said he followed the man down the stairs, but suddenly lost consciousness, and then fell down the stairs instead.

Henry woke up almost four hours later, and that was when he called the police. Henry was diagnosed with epilepsy shortly before the murders, and seizures can be brought on by stress. So this could explain the long gap between the time of the attacks and the emergency call. But the more interactions the police had with Henry, the more suspicious many of them started to become of the surviving son. Henry had seemed far too calm at the scene. more suspicious many of them started to become of the surviving son. Henry had seemed far too calm at the scene.

During his first interview, detectives thought he even seemed a bit cocky. This is the thing. A lot of people, the police included, make a big thing about how Henry is behaving at the scene. They say he's far too calm when he's with the paramedics. The paramedics think he's far too calm. They say when he turned up the next day for his interview, many of the detectives thought that he, quote, reeked of alcohol. And again, they thought that he was being far too cocky.

All of that kind of stuff, we know, we all know, dear listeners, that that kind of thing is very subjective. Yeah. It's very hard to know how anyone is going to react in that situation. No two people are the same. There is no universal response to your family being axe murdered to death. But that's about as far as my devil's advocating for Henry van Breda will go. Yeah, I'm not brimming with sympathy.

I think all of the characteristics that have been described, you could affiliate with quite literally any white Afrikaans man from Stellenbosch, to be honest. And it's only going to get, because I think we're giving it away. We are spunking our load quite early on in this episode. But I think this case is so famous, I would be surprised if most people listening who have heard of this case don't know exactly what's about to happen. So the police, with their suspicions already planting little suspicion plants in their brains. Their suspicion speeds they be a sprouting.

They listened to the emergency call that Van Breda had placed and then their eyebrows went skyrocketing and presumably their conspiracy plants came out of their ears. This call to the emergency services is 25 minutes long. I don't think we've ever come across one that is that long. We're not going to play the entire thing because you don't need the whole thing to get the point across, but we are going to play you quite a hefty chunk of it because it's important for us to hear as much as we can to examine Henry's behaviour and the context. You should all know by now,

we're not experts at literally anything. No, no, no, definitely not. So when we say like, we need to listen to as much of it as we can to analyse it within the context, the reason that we're saying that, the reason we are going to play you as much of it as we are, is because a lot of other sort of documentaries that talk about this case, they've clearly chopped it all together, right? They've cut out some of the less interesting parts, chopped it all together for production value. And I'm like, but I listened to the raw audio of this. And I think the context is so important. This is also a very important part of the case. This is a very important part. Let's have a little listen. number but I'm not sure what the number is. My cell phone. We're at 12 Husker Street please. What is this number that you're phoning from?

Is there someone else that can speak if you're not able to? No. Who else is in the house? There's no one else. I need the contact number please yeah okay oh two one oh two one double eight double zero double eight double zero four nine three four nine three and you need the ambulance to go to what number 12 hoska street hoshka hoska g-o-s g-o-s-k-e K-E. What area is this? It's in Stellenbosch. It's in Besolzer Estate. Number 12, Hoskes Street, in Stellenbosch.

Yes. I'm not picking it up for Stellenbosch. I'm picking it up for Burtesef Molneton. We're in... Okay. In Besolzer, Wineland, it's an estate. DE and another word Z-A-L-Z-E. DEZALZE. Yeah, DE.

I'm not picking an essay for Stellenbosch. What area in Stellenbosch are you in? Um, I don't know. That's all that... We're in De Zoldsewine and it's an estate. It's a security estate. Are you sure it's 12 Hosker Street? Yes, absolutely. It's in Buitensig-Molniton, eh? And you're saying you're out in Stellenbosch? Yes. And you don't know what out in Stellenbosch? Yes. And you don't know what area in Stellenbosch? I'm not sure how much more specific I need to be. 8800493.

Yeah. Just check the number. On police system, that number picks up, I'm picking up Bach Street, number 4. In Stellenbosch. Yeah, can you please just send an ambulance, or more than one ambulance to De Zoltse Wineland in Stellenbosch? De Zoltse? Yeah, can you find that please? De Zoltse. Sir, they're going to ask you the same thing that I'm asking you, because you're giving me two different addresses. De Zoltse in Wineland in Stellenbosch. De Zoltze Wineland is the estate, Stellenbosch is the town and Hoska Street, number 12.

Okay, Hoska Street, number 12. Is there a school, a church near where you say a land box there's all this just the the estate clubhouse I guess for the golf course what else results of golf course the main road and she drives to the main road I think it's the the R44 I think so yeah between Somerset West and Stellenbosch. And the R44, is there a garage, a school, a church near to where you stay? There's, just across from the, there's a mall. What mall? Eichelstadt Mall, no not Eichelstadt Mall. There's a BP across from me. Yeah, I'm in Bosch. Going to the map, eh? You say there's a BP.

Yeah. Is that all you know, the BP garage? No other shop near in your area? Yeah. I tried De Zultza Golf Club on my phone's maps, that's what it's called. Dezolza Golf Club. Yeah, it's the estate next to Technopark. Next to Technopark. Yeah, it's by Jamestown as well.

By Jamestown? Yeah. What is Jamestown? Jamestown is the next suburb next to us. And you the patient? No, no, my family is, someone attacked my family. Eh? Someone has attacked my family in my house. Okay, so you need the police or an ambulance?

An ambulance, please, yes. Now, who is injured? I think everyone. Everyone in your house? Everyone, four people, yes. Adults, two adults? Two adults and two, well, three adults and one teenage girl, yes. What are the injuries?

Um, head injuries, I'd look... Are they conscious? I don't think so, my sister's moving, but that's it. Suspects still on scene, these, uh... Are there any suspects on scene? No, no, they ran away. With what were they attacked? An axe.

I think I blacked out and I've just woken up. So I think it's really, really clear that Henry van Bredaar seems very calm. He seems pretty collected. And it's also easy to miss because again we can't play the subtitles because this is an audio format but it's very easy to miss that at one point he actually says that his sister is still conscious and still moving so it really becks the question why is he not screaming for someone to come and help imagine I know we're saying there's no universal response to this but what I would think is if there was any chance of saving anyone in that horrendous situation

wouldn't you be screaming out of desperation if it's all over and you know they're all dead i can understand somebody maybe being so in shock that they aren't being desperate but he says she's still moving she's still conscious when he talks about Marley yeah it's tricky but yeah he doesn't have any any sense of urgency at all no and that's why I wanted to play such a big chunk so that you can see how long this goes on for how sort of continuously he's having this conversation and also the operator is kind of infuriating. I know it's her job. I know it's an incredibly difficult job to be an emergency dispatcher. I'm not questioning that whatsoever.

But it feels infuriating to listen when you know what's happened and you know what happens real. Because like we said at the start, she actually goes on to say later in court that she thought it was a prank, which might explain why she's being slightly unresponsive to certain things but if it's difficult for us to listen to feeling a bit infuriated that help isn't being sent immediately why is henry not losing it yeah why is he not screaming at her and that's why she actually says later that she thought it was a prank because he wasn't screaming at her i see i mean again we know that this is all subjective, but it is certainly worth pointing out, and it would be bizarre if we didn't. So naturally, yes, of course, when the

police heard this emergency call, they were incredibly suspicious. What they needed was to hear what Marley had to say. And sure enough, the police noticed that the cockiness that Henry had been exhibiting disappeared pretty quickly when he found out that ten days after the murders, his sister Marley finally woke up. I know, I'm guessing that was the sound in his head. And the entire time that Marley had been kept in ICU after the operation that she'd had, she'd been kept under 24-hour police protection at the hospital

and no one, absolutely no one, not even a single family member had been allowed to visit her because the police don't know who did this and that was the right decision. But now she was awake, the police urgently needed to hear what Marley had to say. But although 16-year-old Marley knew who she was, knew what year it was, etc, she had absolutely no memory of the night of the 27th of January. And she was diagnosed with retrograde amnesia. And considering that Marley had taken about three or four blows to the head

with the sharp end of an axe, it's hardly a shocker that she couldn't remember anything. Marley was eventually allowed to go live with her aunt and uncle, and her location was well protected to go live with her aunt and uncle, and her location was well protected to keep her away from the media glare. I'm sure you can imagine, because you're all very intelligent, of course, that there was speculation at the time that Marley actually did remember exactly what happened, but she didn't want to testify. And maybe that's true, there's no way we can know for sure, and even if she is lying, can't really say I blame her.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of that in the earlier reporting of this case, that people were suspicious that Marley was lying. The thing is, retrograde amnesia is an incredibly common thing to happen after head injuries. And she had four axe hits to the head. Yeah, and just trauma-induced as well. And she was the last to be attacked. So she watched, or at least saw, definitely her mum get murdered in front of her,

but maybe even saw her brother and her father get attacked in front of her. There is a lot going on, so I absolutely can believe that retrograde amnesia is playing a part here. I can also understand if she is lying because she doesn't want to testify because this case was fucking enormous. There is another theory, but we're going to come back to

that much later in the episode. So remember the speculation. I'm not saying I believe it, but remember the speculation. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudian Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On the Media. To listen, subscribe to On the Media wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest

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we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. So with nothing coming from Marley, they didn't really have too much to go on and it took 17 months after the attack before the police got their hands on any real forensic evidence. In South Africa, there was and still is a major backlog on forensic analysis because it's a nation with very high levels comparatively of violent crime.

So there's just a lot of pressure on labs to be processing a lot of stuff all of the time. Yeah, it is kind of the perfect storm. Underfunded labs, sort of not great police work. Before this case, they were under a lot of pressure because of a few other major cases that the police had botched in the sort of Cape Town area. So under a lot of pressure to solve this one. But the labs are like, we have to go in order of what we have. We can't just prioritize this one because it's a big case. Yeah, it's like Paul Bernardo. His sperms were just sat in a processing center because everyone was suddenly like DNA, DNA, let's DNA everything.

Absolutely. And so it took 17 months after this case, before the police got their hands on almost any forensic evidence. But as soon as they did, the police were like, aha, we've got enough on Henry. And they wanted to move ahead and submitted the case to the DPP. And finally, on the 13th of June 2017, Henry was arrested. He was charged with three counts of murder, one count of attempted murder and one of obstructing justice. The prosecution alleged that he had tampered with the crime scene and lied to police and self-inflicted his wounds. Because why else would he have knife wounds and nobody else?

Yeah, quite. I mean, we'll come on to discuss that but yeah so obviously the three counts of murder are for martin rudy and theresa and the one count of attempted is for marley and they just chuck in the obstruction of justice because they're like you fucked with the scene we don't believe you that you were unconscious for three or four hours and we don't believe that those knife wounds were from a laughing black man in a balaclava so the trial kicked off in April 2017 at the Western Cape High Court with Henry pleading not guilty. And remember it's for the prosecution to prove that he did it beyond a reasonable doubt. The defense don't have to prove anything so all

the onus is on the prosecution. So what was the prosecution's case at trial? Well, they had a neighbour who testified that she had heard a loud argument coming from the Van Breda house on the night of Monday the 26th of January 2015. And this is so great. To this neighbour coming forward and saying this, because this neighbour doesn't come forward immediately, she actually waits a few months before she does,

because this case was so huge. think people immediately suspected henry and i think that everybody thought he would just be found guilty and that the police would have enough evidence on him and that's what she says she says i really didn't want to come forward because what if i come forward and say i heard this argument and then he fucking comes and kills me yeah so she's like i really didn't want to but when i knew that 17 months later he was still walking free i had to come forward and say what i heard but to this neighbor's testimony henry's defense team said in court that what she'd heard was just the soundtrack to star wars 2 playing on the surround sound speakers in the van bradar house okay i know next to nothing

about star wars but i don't think any of it sounds like a domestic dispute no it does not are you disputing with lightsabers in your house don't know is that the noises is that what it is no that's not even close to what it is what's that that i'm doing i don't ride at the valkyrie I don't know that's my that's my lightsaber noise oh that's pretty good that's pretty good that's all I know I don't know if that is the entire soundtrack to Star Wars I'm almost certain it is oh well I bet it is that but to the tune of the sound of the Valkyries Mandela effect for you uh C-3PO has one silver leg, look it up He's not completely gold Sneaky Sneakity sneaks

So this witness, whether we know the theme tune to Star Wars 2 or not she said that she was all too aware of the soundtrack to Star Wars 2 and she said she knew exactly what it sounded like and this wasn't that She said it was male voices arguing loudly

The prosecution also wondered why at 4.24am on a Tuesday morning Henry had called his girlfriend. It went unanswered and then he used his phone to google search for emergency numbers but didn't call the police until 7.12. Yeah. If he had fallen down the stairs after having an epileptic seizure that left him unconscious for three to four hours, as he previously claimed, how is he managing to Google things on his phone? Well, this is the thing. It doesn't make any sense because the attack happens around four. That's what he says. But then he calls his girlfriend. She doesn't pick up. And then he Googles emergency

numbers. But he said that he had chased the attacker out of the house. And that's when he'd fallen down the stairs. So exactly like you said, when would he have had time to place that call and then Google emergency services? Is he doing it as he's running down the stairs chasing this axe wielding maniac? And then he slips and falls falls and then he wakes up three hours later and then finally calls the police yeah and it doesn't really end there there's another problem with his story the whole i've been unconscious for all three hours story because if he'd fallen down the stairs and been unconscious for such a long time the blood that was all over him would have changed direction it would have been rubbed by the stairs or the carpet or him falling on himself or his arms.

But it hadn't. The blood on Henry all followed the same downward dripping pattern. Not sideways, not smudging, not nothing. Yeah. How are you going to be now laying down on your back but the blood is still flowing down? Yeah, he would have had to have fallen and then passed out sitting up somehow. Yeah, he would have had to fall down the stairs, landed on a step in a perfect sitting up position,

and then that's the only explanation for the blood. Which is unlikely at best. Also, there's more holes in this. When Henry was examined the morning that the police arrived, so roughly four hours after the attack, the paramedics who examined him said that Henry van Breda showed no signs of a concussion. The police also said that he smelt like alcohol, to which Henry said that the wine that the family had had the night before had had a strong smell. Oh, give it a rest. I know.

That's like what you say to your mum when you've been to the pub on Christmas Eve and you're really hungover on Christmas Day and you're like, oh no, it's just the stench of the one pint I had. But the paramedics who examined Henry also noted that his pupils were not responding to light in the way that you would expect. Now this was presented in court by the prosecution as Henry having been on drugs. But, and this is a big problem in the prosecution's case, the problem was that on the night that they had arrived at the house they had failed to take a blood or a urine sample from Henry. They later said that this was because they already suspected him immediately and they thought by taking a blood sample or a urine sample from him that night would have caused him to lawyer up and he wouldn't have cooperated with them but if they had carried on pretending like

they thought he was just a witness then maybe he would have been more cooperative but they really fucked themselves over because they didn't take a blood sample or urine sample so proving that he was on drugs or anything like that was impossible so there's no way to know if his pupils not responding to light in the way that you would expect was actually to do with drugs. And actually, I did look this up. And apparently, your pupils not dilating or constricting properly can also be a sign of a concussion, even though the paramedics said that he had no sign of a concussion. Oh, yeah, that's the first thing they look for. That's what I thought.

For head injury. And also, if you're me, your pupils are really dilated all the time because I have very dim vision. Well, there you go. So my eyeballs are constantly searching for light sources. So obviously, the pupils not dilating or constricting properly because they couldn't be proven to be related to drugs could fit Henry's story of falling. But I do have to say what backs up the paramedics saying that he wasn't concussed was that when brain scans were done of him, there were no signs of any serious significant brain injuries. And that was done that day because he was taken to the hospital. And if you're blowing out a pupil because of a concussion, you'd think there's something else. Exactly. There'd be some other sign. But in court, it was also pointed out that Henry does have epilepsy so again this was

pointed out as a reason for why he might have been unconscious so they're basically saying the defense all right fine you didn't find a concussion and I know he said that he fell down the stairs and that's what caused him to pass out but maybe actually he got that wrong and it was the stress of what happened that night that caused him to have an epileptic seizure and that's why he'd been unconscious. That's why you couldn't find any signs of a head injury or any sign of a concussion. But we really need to hold on to the fact that he was unconscious for three or four hours because he didn't call the police until then. So that's the defence sort of backing that claim up.

But they really had to say something because not only was there no brain injuries or head injury that matched with a concussion, Henry also had no other injuries to his body that seemed consistent with someone having fallen down the steps. Yeah. Surely you would expect some scrapes to your arms, your legs, a bruise or two. And also, the forensic pathologist who watched Henry in court recite and reenact and I mean that literally blow by blow reenactment from Henry in court holding an axe the forensic pathologist was in their own words interested she said that there is no way that someone who was concussed or claimed to be concussed could remember that amount of detail related to the situation right before their concussion occurred. I'm not even

kidding you there is video footage of Henry with an axe in court showing blow by blow what he saw. It can't be both Henry you can't have been concussed and remember that much, is what the forensic pathologist said. And then we've got Henry's side of the story 2.0. He claimed, in court, that he'd been hiding in the en suite toilet during basically all of the attacks. But his clothes were covered in the kind of blood spatter that would only have been possible if he had been stood within a close proximity to each member of the family when they were attacked. And the bathroom door that he claimed to be hiding behind had no blood spray on it, but he was completely covered in it. When this was pointed out, Henry changed his story in court. He claimed that, you know,

maybe he'd come out of the en suite a little bit sooner than he had initially thought. Again, it's just so unbelievable because he's got all of their blood on him and on his socks and on his body. And again, like you said, blood spatter like he was in close proximity. So it kind of makes it seem like this attacker was completely ignoring Henry and Henry was just standing next to him trying to like stop him doing every attack and getting covered in the blood of each of his family members while they were being attacked and still this man didn't just turn around and give him one like stab with the axe like he did to four other people he just let him continue to pester him while he murdered four people.

Exactly so yet again it doesn't really fit with the kind of injuries that Henry sustained or the ones that he hadn't, should we say? Yeah, because the idea that he was wrestling with an axe wielding man. How have you not got any more injuries on you? In court, Henry stuck to his original story, saying that the attacker had slashed at him with the knife before finally stabbing him in the left side and then running off. He also claimed that the knife had got stuck in his side. But the knife wounds that Henry had on him, like I said, were incredibly superficial. According to the forensic pathologist, some of them barely even broke the skin. And the one that he said, because he basically makes it sound like

the attacker stabbed him in the left hand side and then the knife was still hanging out of him when the attacker ran off presumably to be like i was quite distracted by the knife hanging out of my side to chase him any harder but the cut on his left side was only a few millimeters deep yeah and then sticking out of you nothing is hanging in there and in court they actually got like a pig carcass and got the same knife and stabbed it in a few millimetres, the depth that Henry's wound was, and let the knife go. And what do we all think happened? It just fell on the floor. So lies, lies, lies, lies is how it started to come across. Also, the forensic pathologist

pointed out that all of the cuts and slashes from the knife to Henry were far too similar. They were far too uniform and they were way too straight. They looked like cuts that had been done on somebody who was standing totally still, so a totally stationary person. Because there was no movement in the cuts and the slashes that you'd expect to see if they had been inflicted during a fight where the person is moving. They were also all, as noted by the forensic pathologist, in incredibly accessible places. They were on his arms, his torso, for example he had none on his back, which would be harder to do to yourself. There was also absolutely no bruising, no defence wounds, and the injuries were absolutely not consistent with that of a life or death struggle with an axe wielding maniac

Like, how were you going to get no bruising or defence wounds? You'd have expected Henry Van Breda after the story that he said after what this man had done to four other people in that house to have been way more fucked up, physically speaking. And also, you would expect to see wounds and cuts on the underside of his forearms, his wrists, his elbows, and on the palms of his hands and on the back of his hands. This is where we typically see defensive wounds in a knife attack. And crucially, we'd have expected to see deep cuts on his fingers. And if you remember back to way, way back when we did the Dali Routier episode, we talked about it there.

If someone is coming at you with a knife, rather than let that knife enter your chest or your head or your neck, instinctively, you're going to grab that knife with your hand and your hands and your fingers are going to get cut up. Henry's were absolutely fine. The pathologist also made the point that when you have one killer who kills multiple people in one go, like this one allegedly, all the injuries are typically very consistent

and the whole family sustained severe head injuries from the axe, except Henry, who just had some knife scratches on him. And when it comes to spree killings like this, that is extremely unusual. Yeah, for a killer to change MO, change their style like that, in an attack on five people, makes almost no sense. The blood spatter expert also said that the evidence suggested that someone had tried to wash blood off themselves, or objects perhaps, in the shower, in the en suite, in the boys' room.

But Henry never said anyone else was in the bathroom apart from himself, so it's the same en suite that he claims to be hiding behind the door of. And he'd said that the killer ran off, so if anyone was in the bathroom, it had to be Henry Breda himself. Exactly. Like, apart from Rudy, whose body does seem to have moved, because his blood is on his duvet, and Henry also said that he was being attacked on his bed, but Rudy's body is on the floor later,

he could have been knocked off when his dad tried to come in and help him. And the thing that's really sad about Martin van Breda is actually that he has absolutely no defensive wounds and all of his attacks are to the back of his neck and his head. So what they think happened is he comes in, sees Rudy being attacked, and he throws himself on his son and then gets axed in the back of the head. No one else has moved because they all die where they fall. So how could that blood have got into the bathroom if you say that the attacker ran off? And why the fuck would the attacker stay around and try to wash himself?

It's only one person that could have done that. And if we're all agreed that Henry was the only person in the bathroom, why was he washing himself? Precisely. And was that during the four hours he was unconscious? Henry claimed that he didn't wash himself off in the bathroom at all. And although trace amounts of his brother's, his mum's and his dad's blood were found in the

shower he said that any of them could have used the shower in the days before the attack and cut themselves shaving and martin van bradar in their fuck off million dollar house would go use their 20 and 22 year old son's bathroom that's the last place i'd want to know absolutely not there is no chance on my brother's bathroom absolutely not. There is no chance on earth. I've seen my brother's bathroom at home, it's disgusting. There is no way on earth that Teresa or Martin would have gone into that bathroom to shave themselves. What the fuck? It makes no sense. Now as you can imagine, one of the problems with this case was that DNA was found all over the house and it's all the families because it's their fucking house so it really complicates the situation and blood was also found everywhere in fact one of the first responders described blood flowing down the stairs of the house like a quote waterfall blood bath doesn't

even come close to this scene but again all of this blood that was found at the scene was all the family's blood. So the question became, how did the attacker leave absolutely nothing behind? How did this attacker leave no DNA, no blood, nothing behind? It made no sense, not even a fingerprint. Now, of course, Henry said that this person was wearing a balaclava. They were also fully dressed. They were wearing gloves. But still, that is quite the feat.

Especially when Henry says that he attacked the guy. This is a point that I find particularly curious because that axe that had been used to murder the entire family had no fingerprints on it whatsoever. Now Henry, like we said, did say that the killer was wearing gloves. But he also said that he grabbed the axe off the man. And in fact, he said that as the man was running away, he threw the axe at him. So where the hell are Henry's prints? I'm sorry, who's doing axe throwing? Yeah, he says. In the middle of a family murder.

He was like, I grabbed the axe. And when the guy ran away, because although he thinks he's killed four of my family members, including Rudy, who's bigger than me, he clearly looked at me and thought, I can't kill this guy. So we ran off. Terrifying. So where the hell are Henry's fingerprints on this axe? Clearly he's wiped the axe down. And now it seems more confusing because why is the axe devoid of any prints? Yeah. Why are you wearing gloves in your own house, Henry? Another thing that was missing from the scene that didn't make Henry look great was the lack of blood patches on him. It was clear from the absence of sort of big pools of blood or big patches of blood on Henry's clothes that at no point had Henry held any of his dying family or tried to console them or help them. Even though he said in court that both Marley and in fact Rudy had been alive for some time

after the intruder fled. In fact Marley was still alive when the paramedics got there. In fact Marley is still alive today. So yeah I think he has spray and splatter all over him, but he has no big patches like he'd held anybody or like he'd, you know, pulled someone into his lap or something like that. How is that the case? Especially when Marley was still conscious. I mean, it's just not the case, isn't it? It's just not the case. That doesn't necessarily prove guilt or innocence. And I actually think that he probably stayed away from them because he was guilty. But it certainly didn't make him look very good in front of the jury when the prosecution pointed that out. Challenged on why he sounded quite so calm and lacked the desperation you'd expect at a time like that, Henry said that he was in shock, but that also, as a child, he'd stuttered.

And to help him with this stutter, he had been taught to speak slowly, especially when he was stressed. I know people make the biggest point out of the emergency call. That is the piece of evidence that everybody talks about. That's the evidence that people really obsess about. There's also a part right at the start and again about three minutes in where he sounds like he's almost giggling. People make a huge deal about that.

That to me is almost the least interesting part of it. Yeah, I was going to say, for me, it's actually the least compelling bit of evidence. The blood is the most compelling evidence. The fingerprints, the lack of fingerprints on the axe and the blood spatter on him because he says he was hiding behind the door are the most compelling pieces for me. I think people like 911 calls because they're very easy to insert into documentaries and news reports, you know. I think that's why 911 calls make it into so much

true crime stuff because it's a piece of evidence that you can have right there and then. Absolutely. And it's also compelling for people listening and watching to those documentaries because it feels like, oh, I wouldn't have done that. Oh, look at what he's doing. Yeah. But even still, obviously, we love to judge other people, me included, but I still think this case would be completely outrageous, even if the 911 call was completely normal. And in fact, him saying, well, I was in shock and actually as a child I had a really bad stutter and I was taught to speak slowly when I was stressed. If there was no other evidence, the blood spatter wasn't there, the axe wasn't there. Do you know what? I'd be like, yeah, all right. That kind of makes sense. But the prosecution still have more up their sleeve.

They brought up what they had found on the phones and laptops at the house. Reportedly, one of the phones in the Van Breda house had been used to look up an axe attack carried out by an American man called Christopher Porco. 21-year-old Porco attacked his parents, Peter and Joan, in 2004. The only thing is, we're not sure whose mobile phone was used to make that search. And remember that because it's coming back. Yeah, the Porco case is interesting. It's basically exactly the same except Joan survives and she defends her son and says

that he didn't do it. But he definitely did. Okay. And he's been convicted. Oh, wow. And it is quite coincidental that those searches were done in the lead up to this. And it's quite obscure. Definitely.

Now, another question worth asking is why was Marley's throat cut? Because if you remember, she had four axe blows to the head and her jugular had been cut. You're not cutting somebody's jugular with an axe. You're cutting it with a knife. And this is interesting because the knife and the axe that were found upstairs that had been used in the murders were both from the Van Breda house. They were both apparently kept in the Van Breda kitchen. So once again, a problem here. Why, if a killer had broken in, would they have grabbed a huge wood chopping axe and a little kitchen knife? Why do you need both? And how would you have known where the little kitchen knife is? It's like that bit in Mrs Doubtfire where he knows where the teaspoons are.

The kitchen knife, fine. If it's in a block, sure. Apparently the axe, according to the domestic help that the Van Bredaars had, the axe was kept in the pantry. So this guy breaks him. He's on the floor that all of the valuables are in. The family's asleep upstairs. Presumably that's why he's broken in at 3.30, 4 o'clock in the morning. And he doesn't just take what he wants and leaves. He goes looking for an axe and a knife

and then goes upstairs and murders everybody. Okay, that makes no sense. So let's posit the theory that henry instead does the axe murders then he knows he can't axe himself so does he go downstairs to the kitchen to get the knife so that he can cut himself and that's why you get the fucking shit superficial bloody slashes he's got on his body. And then does he go back upstairs where he sees that Marley was still breathing and moving and maybe he just couldn't do the axe again. And also I'm not saying that necessarily out of like an emotional I couldn't axe my sister again after I've hit her

in the head four times with an axe. I mean he says that he throws the axe at the intruder and when they find it, there is a dent on the wall and it is on the floor. So maybe he realizes if I move the axe again, it's going to be suspicious because why does it come back upstairs? So does he cut her jugular with the knife in order to finish her off before the police came? And presumably that's why he waits four hours to see if she'll die but she doesn't that's so dark i know i know because what's the other reason for waiting so long well i guess another reason you'd wait that long is because then he'd be able to say the intruder's gone you know yeah if he calls them straight away and they put roadblocks down it's harder to explain how this person got away

but anyway there is just so much evidence with this case. We could have honestly spent years talking about it. But ultimately, three and a half years after the murders, Henry van Breda, now almost 24, was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life in prison. Thank Christ for that. I really, there were a few moments there where I was like, are they going to get it? Yeah, no, I know what you mean. Now, as many people will know, the prosecution in a criminal trial doesn't have to show or prove a motive.

You don't need that. It's good if you can point to one for narrative purposes, but it's not essential to gain a conviction. And Henry, to this day, maintains his innocence. He's never admitted to the murders. And he's also never, obviously, therefore, offered any sort of explanation or any sort of remorse for what happened.

So what reasons could he possibly have had chopping up his happy family? Well, the most common theory that you see floated around is drug abuse. And my friend who grew up in this area, she wouldn't have been there in... Well, she would have been at the time the murders happened. She said that the rumours of Henry's drug abuse were swimming around for years and years and years. And it's like very class-based,

whispery, gossipy gossips. Henry, at the time of the murders, was on what he and his parents were calling a gap year from university. But it wasn't a gap year at all. He dropped out of the University of Melbourne in the middle of 2014 because of drugs. He'd been caught and the uni didn't want any of it. Australia famously zero tolerance. And apparently during his time at university, his nickname had been Druggie. Not very imaginative, but it hits the nail on the head. Does what it says on the nickname label. Being kicked out of uni meant that Henry was forced to move back home to South Africa.

His parents tried really hard to get him into different unis there but they all said no because of his drugs report. And I think this is part of the problem. They all sort of tell everybody that he's just on a gap year. He's just taking a year out from uni to like come home for a bit. But's because martin van bradar rudy theresa they are all incredibly high achieving and they have a reputation they're very much part of the community

they don't want everybody to know that their son is taking drugs and that's why he was kicked out of his physics degree so they're desperately trying to sort of get him in somewhere else but it just doesn't work and also also Henry doesn't really give a shit. That's very much the impression I get. It's alleged that when Henry was just sat around his home, his super wealthy suburb, he developed a tick addiction. And tick is crystal meth, basically, in South Africa. I've also heard, because I was in a pharmacy and there was like basically a drugs test and said what it tested for. And tick was one of the things it said on the label.

So I asked Geetz what it was and she said it was crack. So I don't know whether it's just like a slang term for like any smokable upper. No idea. I googled it and it told me it was crystal meth. So let us know, South African listeners, because I can't remember. But I thought it was very interesting that a slang word was on a drug test that was being sold in a pharmacy. So to battle his tick addiction, Henry's parents put him into a top-notch,

super expensive rehab centre, but it didn't work. Clearly because he was still using it after. And there's a lot of speculation about it. People say it was never confirmed. But then staff members from this rehab centre testified at court. I just can't see what they testified but they're on the witness list so I'm guessing he was there. Unsurprisingly Henry's drug taking caused quite a few issues within his family. Martin was a hard worker, he had very high expectations of his kids and the people they talk. But Henry was just bumming around at home taking

drugs and not being good enough. Apparently, Martin and Teresa had cut Henry off financially to stop him from being able to buy more drugs, and that had made Henry very angry. So had this caused the fight that the neighbour had heard? Had Henry just decided to murder everyone to get his hands on money for more drugs and to stop being nagged by all of his family for his crystal meth taking. Possibly. And it's a good theory. And I'm not saying it's, you know, it's one or the other.

But a couple of other people have also posed other suggestions. One of them being Teresa's best friend, because she said that she thinks that the entire murder was actually based on jealousy. According to her, Henry was jealous of Rudy, Marley and his father Martin. She says that since they were little kids, Marley was the sweet one, Rudy was the achiever and Henry was the loner. Martin, like Hannah just said, was incredibly successful and apparently this had filled Henry with a rage of inadequacy. Apparently, and there's been some studies into this, you Hannah just said, was incredibly successful. And apparently, this had filled Henry with a rage of inadequacy. Apparently, and there's been some studies into this, you know,

again, you can study into anything and just basically say it's facts because you could prove anything with samples. But apparently, some psychological studies have shown that when the same gender parent is an incredible overachiever and then the same gender child doesn't feel like they've lived up or matched that parent in particular it can cause quite a lot of feelings of inadequacy and fury I can imagine so because like if your parent is an overachiever they only know how to be an overachiever it's probably quite difficult for them to understand why you can't just do it

and also I think from the child's perspective it's a direct comparison with the same gendered parent and a feeling of I have underachieved by comparison to them. And so there are some theories circulating that maybe the whole family weren't actually all targets. Maybe it wasn't Martin. Maybe if we take a look at who the first victim was. Because what do we know? We typically know that when killers kill, especially in a situation like this, the first kill can be highly, highly indicative of what their real rage was. And in this case, it was, of course, Rudy who was killed first. And so some people theorized that maybe the whole family

weren't targets at all. Maybe it was just Rudy. After all, like we said, the attack had started in the boys' room and Rudy was the first to be killed. The injuries to Martin, given that he was clearly moving during the attack and so not asleep, whereas Rudy seemed to be when he was like asleep or at least still, seemed to have been, like we said, because he had tried to protect Rudy. So, had Henry attacked Rudy, then killed Martin as Martin had tried to stop him, and then had Henry felt like he had to kill everyone else in the family to cover it up, to avoid facing what he'd done?

Who knows? But believe it or not, there are still people close to Henry who think he's innocent. His aunt, Linta Nell, Teresa's sister, says that she believes Henry's story and claims that it's not up to us humans to judge. Shut up, Linta Nell, Teresa's sister, says that she believes Henry's story and claims that it's not up to us humans to judge. Shut up, Linta. Is it God's job, Linta? Yeah, she's like, we should just leave it to God. We should just let people do whatever they want. It's not for me to judge. Oh my God.

I know. Just, you know, the centuries of the criminal justice system. It's not for us to judge and that's also like literally what fascists say where they're like well you know god has made his decision already so it doesn't matter if they die now fucking hell just the fact that she can say that and i think it's bizarre more bizarre the most bizarre because people might sort of say that kind of mumbo jumbo and then the argument would always be even though it's not the best thing in a debate to make it personal the argument would always be what if this happened to your family this did happen to her family and she's still saying the fucking crazy shit yeah so maybe she's the best christian of us all maybe so let's entertain linda's fairy tale for a moment if it wasn't henry who was it maybe it was a balaclavard. But if this attack had been an escalation from their

previous burglaries, the police didn't see the escalation continue in further attacks like you would expect it would. It's very rare that you'd see someone ramp up so much and then pull back, but still continue to assault people. And then just go back to plain old burglaries where they tie people up and leave them alive. But there's one more possibility that is worth mentioning. 16-year-old Marley had been in a relationship with an 18-year-old boy called James Reid Jan. James even testified in court that Martin was a dominating and controlling man who was rough on Marley. James claimed that Martin would always be on at Marley about her schoolwork, her weight and her relationship with him.

Apparently, they thought that the relationship was too serious, and the Van Breda's were even planning on talking to James' parents about keeping the two apart during Marley's exams. And because of all of this, the two, by which I mean James and Marley, had had long and continuous WhatsApp conversations about this. James had even sent Marley a message saying, quote, I feel like I want to murder people that are around you at the moment and I'm inches away from losing it with them and breaking down completely.

Ah, come on, I say that every day. I know, but then her family were murdered. That's the thing. That's the difference, yeah. I think that's the thing that's the difference yeah i think that's the problem is like i'm going to read out some other stuff that they were saying and some more context of it and a lot of it is just like teenage angst he's 18 she's 16 they've got their heads into this kind of romeo and juliet complex where the van bradars are like no marley needs to focus on her schoolwork and they've turned them into the villain but they're just like trying to look out for their kid because she's fucking all her time away with this guy

who's 18 and they're like no you need to focus on schoolwork because this is the most important thing and they're fucking seething about it the discussion between the two of them is peppered with a lot of they can't stop us and a lot of like rage at everybody including Aunt Marley's brother Rudy who when he was back from Australia had apparently told Marley to suck it up because mum and dad were right. So he's very much the golden child. Marley is 16 and going through her rebellious phase and when Rudy had said this Marley tells James and he had actually replied to Marley saying Rudy can suck it up he He's a little bitch. Your whole family can fuck off.

Come live with me. Again, all standard, typical teenage bullshit. But it was in the weeks leading up to her entire family being axe murdered. Worth mentioning. And actually, the only one who didn't get hatred in the couple's WhatsApp thread was Henry. Marley even texts James a couple of weeks before the murder saying, quote, In bed, Henry is so chilled, I love it. And then the next day she sent him another message that said, Deep inside, I still hate everyone in my family except Henry.

Ha ha ha. Okay, like, I get it, because she's got Rudy, who's her eldest brother, who's, like, the perfect kid. Yeah, he's agreeing with mum and dad. He's agreeing with mum and dad. And Henry's 20. And obviously he's agreeing with 16-year-old Marley,

because he's a fucking wastebite. Yeah, exactly. He's like, yeah, Marley, you're totally right. You should just be allowed to hang out with James and not focus on your education or worry about anything that's going on with your exams. She's like, I love him. Yeah, and Marley's like, well, I can't possibly look worse than Henry. He's off his face on crystal meth all the time. Exactly. Possibly

the person who's spending all his time taking meth is not the person to be looking to advice from. But if you're a 16-year-old, he kind of seems like the perfect person. And when James took the stand in court, he said that he didn't mean any of it, especially not the wanting to murder her entire family bit. And he just said that stuff to comfort Marley. How comforting. It would comfort the shit out of me, let me tell you. Now, I'm not saying just because of all of this that Marley was involved. She suffered immensely.

I would say more than anybody because she's still alive. And she has to deal with knowing what happened to her entire family. She lost all of them. Her entire life was destroyed. But I do think it is hard to move away completely from the idea that James, at least at the time, was a viable suspect. And the police didn't really look at him at all. And this was one of the defence's arguments, that the police sort of blinkered themselves and decided that Henry was guilty without looking at any other possible suspects.

Again, for me, the fingerprint stuff and the blood stuff is very compelling. So I would have absolutely found him guilty. I would have found him guilty based on that. They would have proven it to me beyond a reasonable doubt. And another thing that's worth mentioning is, remember Sasha, the black lab? Well, Sasha was the family dog, but she was basically Marley's dog.

And that night, the night of the attack, Sasha was locked up in the garage. Well done. Thank you. She definitely wasn't in the house, and we know this for a fact, because, firstly, if she'd have been in the house and somebody was fucking murdering the family,

there would have been a dog going fucking ballistic. Yeah, she's not a shih tzu. No, she's a big Labrador. And also, if she'd been in the house and, say, it had been Henry or it had been James and she'd known them and therefore not been barking, which she definitely would have been because she would have still seen that something bad was happening,

there would have been paw prints all over the house covered in blood. But there's none of that. And the thing about Sasha is she wasn't an outside dog she wasn't a garage dog she was like a family member she was an inside dog she actually slept upstairs on one of their beds every night and in fact because Sasha was a Labrador and had fucked up legs one of the Vambradas would always carry her upstairs. So she isn't the kind of dog that gets accidentally locked up in the garage. So firstly, how did that happen? If Henry is to be believed and they all had dinner, had some wine, watched Star Wars 2 and then went to bed, I can't believe that nobody remembered that no one was carrying this dog up the stairs.

They just accidentally left her in the garage. That doesn't make any sense. And let's say that is what happened. Are we then saying that on the one night this happened, an intruder just so happened to know that Sasha was locked up in the garage and broken? No other person could have got that dog into the garage, I'm convinced of that. And so, that to me really rules out the idea of it being the balaclava gang. The fact that

there was no break-in, no one was spotted on CCTV, the dog couldn't have been moved by anybody else. It had to be Henry or, if you're going to be really conspiratorial about it, Marley's boyfriend James. Also, James and Henry were pretty close so maybe we can throw in another weird suggestion here. After Henry was bailed, he actually even went to stay at James's parents' place with him, rather than go live with his uncle straight away. So had they been in on it together? And is that why Marley didn't die immediately? Although, obviously, the attacks on Marley was quite clearly to kill her.

The problem with this argument is that if James had done it, why wouldn't Henry just have said it was him? Why would he say it was some black balaclavid man? Was it so he didn't implicate himself in a planned murder? I don't know. But would he really protect James over getting justice for his entire family? I don't think he'd protect anyone. I think he just wants to smoke more meth. Exactly. And also, would he sacrifice himself like this because James had done it, even if they'd done it together? I don't think so. So yeah, I don't think that James's text made him look particularly great.

But I really don't think it could have been anybody other than Henry. There's only three options, and it's not any of them except Henry. There's only three options and one correct one. Yes, precisely. So yeah. Justice done. Yes, absolutely. I think that. Justice done. Yes, absolutely. I think that the jury did the right thing,

even though the prosecution didn't put forward the best case because of stuff like not getting the blood samples, urine samples, etc. And taking fucking 17 months to have a case they could actually put forward. But I think the right decision was made in the end. Don't let that put you off South Africa. Cape Town's beautiful. There you go. One day I shall certainly go visit.

So yeah, that is the case of the Van Breda family murders. If you would like to get some extra Red Handed content, then head on over right now to patreon.com slash redhanded where you can take a look at all of the various tiers we offer. Check out what floats your boat. Sign up for that and enjoy. And buy your merch. That that too redhandedshop.com and if you would like to listen to us talking about something else talking about cults then you can head on over to spotify because it is a spotify exclusive show and listen to

sinister societies and we'll see you there or here or somewhere else or maybe on holiday together who knows we'll see you somewhere we hope very soon until then goodbye farewell mon chou they say hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983,

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