RedHanded - Episode 276 - Alison Botha: Left for Dead

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

Kidnapped, attacked and left disembowelled in the desert by two men who claimed to have been possessed by demons, Alison Botha suffered one of the most torturous ordeals we’ve ever covered. The men responsible met through a shared love of cheap drinks, sexual assault and the occult, but nothing can explain the brutality of their crimes. Welcome to a case we’ve been avoiding for years… and for good reason. 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. 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. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello.

It is time. It's the time you've all been waiting for. You probably know what we're going to say. Yep, bang the Liberty Bell because... Ding dong. And the Canadian equivalent of the Liberty Bell. Ding dong. That's it, guys.

We are coming on a North American tour in 2023. It's finally happening. After many a battle with the US embassy, the Canadians, you were pretty sure. You were like, you want to come here? And we were like, yes, please. And they were like, okay. But you US lot, you made it really fucking tricky. But we finally have done it.

We've cracked it. And we are coming for you, North America. We are. On the 14th of March 2023, we will be in Seattle, Washington. Then on March 15th, we will be in Portland, Oregon. And then on the 18th of March, we'll be in San Francisco. Then 19th of March, we'll be in Los Angeles, baby. 21st of March, we'll be in Houston.

And I will be driving from Houston up to Dallas in a muscle car because it is my lifelong dream well she's gonna have to do it quickly because on March the 22nd we will be in Dallas March 23rd we will be in Denver 25th of March we will be in Chicago 26th Minneapolis on the 29th of March we will be in Royal Oak Michigan the 30th of March we will be in Toronto Canada yeah baby is that what you're saying Canada I don't know 1st of April we will be in Royal Oak, Michigan. The 30th of March, we will be in Toronto, Canada. Yeah, baby. Is that what you say in Canada? I don't know. 1st of April,

we will be in Washington, D.C. And then 2nd of April, Philadelphia. 3rd of April, Boston. And then we are rounding it off with reliving, reliving? Living. We haven't done it yet. Living our Broadway dreams.

We will be in New York City at the Town Hall on the 5th of April. So make sure you get your tickets. I have a feeling, as we have been promising you this for basically five years, they might go quite quickly. They will do indeed, because it's not just a feeling. We just went on a UK European tour and our UK tour dates all sold out. And we have double the number of listeners as we do here in the UK in North America so it's just maths people they are going to sell out so if you want a ticket you need to get on this so we are giving you loads and loads and loads of prior warning

tickets will be going on sale for all patrons because yes our beautiful beloved patrons do get early release access to our live shows and those tickets will be going on sale for patrons on the 6th of december so that is next tuesday to get access to those we will be posting a secret link on patreon that morning the morning of tuesday the 6th of december with a password that you need to get your tickets for everyone else all of you non-patrons tickets will be going on sale later on the very same week. General releases on Friday the 9th of December. So if you don't already follow us on socials, I don't know what to tell you. Please do that because all of the information will be being regularly updated on there. And yeah, just keep your eyes and ears peeled for ticket sale links coming very, very soon. And we'll see you on the big straight wide roads you have over there. I can't wait.

Now on with the show. I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to another episode of Red Handed. Your favourite true crime podcast. Your favourite. My favourite. Certainly.

Certainly our favourite. We're in our own studio, which considering the studio we recorded in this morning was essentially the fucking Starship Enterprise, feels a bit disappointing. Yes. Just so you understand what we're talking about, we are secretly squirrelling away working on a long-form podcast. Yeah. So you'll be getting that sometime next year. No sooner than February, I think. But keep your eyes peeled.

And we'll let you know when it's out. So now we're in our own studio like idiots with no sound engineer. I know. But it's okay because you don't care about any of that. You care about what we're going to tell you about today. This episode has been so highly requested. We've had so many people get in touch asking us to cover this case. So we're going to tell you about today. This episode has been so highly requested. We've had so many people get in touch asking us to cover this case. So we're doing it. Honestly, I've been avoiding it for years.

Well, it's too late. For reasons that will become abundantly clear, this is really, really rough. It truly is. Because before we start today, we need to issue you all with the absolute mother of all no eating warnings. Just don't, just don't, just don't be eating, okay? Because this episode includes Satan worship, which, you know, you're all on board with, I know that, but also incredible resilience and one of the most nightmarish physical attacks

you could possibly imagine. We're talking like how you felt when you listened to the Mary Vincent episode, but worse, probably. But prepare yourselves, either way, for satanic sexual stabbings and a story that's absolutely gut-wrenching in every sense of the word. When I think of South Africa, I think of, oh, I love that. That's my favourite place in the world.

If you think of South Africa, you might think of different things. On the one hand, you do have the beautiful views, wonderful people, sensational food, delicious wines, gorgeous beaches, penguins, for God's sake. Amazing wildlife as far as the eye can see. On the other hand, you have a history of racial inequality, apartheid and crime. South Africa's homicide rate in 2020 was around 33 per 100,000 people. And that's a lot. For context, in the same year, Russia reported a homicide rate of 7 in every 100,000, as did the United States. I don't believe you, Russia. I don't believe you,

Russia, either, for one singular solitary moment. I believe that as much as I believe North Korea being like, we don't have any murders. And in the UK, the number has been around one or two per 100,000 people for the past couple of decades. But if you think South Africa has it bad now, just you wait until we wind the clock back a bit. Our case took place in 1994, where the number of South Africans being killed per year was 64 in every 100,000 people. On December the 18th, 1994, 27-year-old Alison Botha was driving home after a night out with her friends she dropped a mate off at their house picked up some laundry while she was there and then started the drive home then alison parked up at her parents quiet house in port elizabeth in the early hours of the

morning but just as she reached to open the car door, her nightmare began. Someone else opened the door from the outside. The next thing Alison knew, a man was holding a knife to her throat and telling her to move over to the passenger side. Alison did as she was told, hoping, like we all would, that if she complied, she might come out of this alive. Weirdly, the man in the car wasn't particularly aggressive. In fact, other than threatening her with the knife, he was being positively chatty. The man told Alison that his name was Clinton.

He said that he just needed to borrow her car for a few hours, and then he'd drop her back home, safe and sound. Unfortunately for Alison, neither of those things were true. The man's real name was Franz de Toy. He was 27 years old and he came from a well-to-do family. His dad was a policeman and his entire family were devoutly Christian. Not unusual in South Africa. Especially, it really surprised me just how religious people are.

It sort of comes up in conversation in ways that I'd never really thought of before. Like a friend of mine is from Pretoria and he'd be like, oh, well, you know, we're Protestants. So I'm like, no one would say that here. At school, Franz de Toy showed a lot of potential, but he wasted it being lazy and mucking about. De Toy didn't really vibe with his Christian upbringing and like a lot of kids, he ended up pushing against it. Sadly, he didn't act out by throwing himself into liberal acceptance and science. Instead, age 13, he set his school on fire. At the time, he blamed this act of unprovoked arson on his love of heavy metal music, saying that it ignited in him something dark. It doesn't do that to anybody. Maybe he had come across the Nordic church burnings,

the Norway church burnings, and he was like, I'll take that. Yes, I am sure he would have done, actually. As a result of his Metallica-motivated madness, Franz de Toy was understandably expelled from the school that he had set on fire. And after this embarrassing incident, if we want to call it that, the de Toys decided to move the whole family 93 miles away, where they hoped that their fiery offspring could start afresh. Spoilers, he didn't. At Fran's new school, the 13-year-old met a girl who claimed to be a witch. Classic,

classic 13-year-old behaviour. And yeah, that does mean that we are indeed back in the South African satanic panic once again. This girl did claim to be a witch. We don't know if she claimed to be a 42nd generational satanic witch or not, but we'll leave that for the history books. Well, it's the early 90s, so she probably might have been a 39th generational. Wouldn't it be weird if we found out she was related to the woman from Devil's Dorp? Get at it, internet. You can figure that out.

Now, for a rundown of the country's delayed obsession with fighting the occult and its links to apartheid, take a listen to our episode that I just mentioned, Devil's Dorp, from a few weeks back. We go into it in a huge amount of detail there. For now, let's stick to our teenage witch. Franz fell head over heels for his new soulmate and his newfound belief in what he thought was Satanism. Obviously we know that Satanism is a

lot less about Satan and a lot more about thinking for yourself but clearly Franz didn't know that. No didn't really get the memo. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't read the satanic bible at all because once you have read it it's quite difficult to avoid what Satanismism actually is yeah no i don't think many 13 year olds are reading that i think quite a few are i just don't think he was one of them so the pair quickly started conducting satanic inspired rituals to release demons which they believed resided within france and around the same time the witch also started to release something else from Franz's insides. You don't need me to spell it out for you. They started having sex.

As their sexual relationship developed, Franz started to notice his mind wandering during the act. He started to fantasize about his witchy girlfriend putting up a fight. And soon he had started to have visions of rape. Eventually, after retaking a year, Franz finished high school and his parents sent him to the best place for any budding psychopath to hone their skills, the army. Predictably, Franz hated authority and spent most of his short military stint in the detention barracks before being let go at the first possible opportunity. It's always the ones that get kicked out of the army

that you really got to watch. I mean, full respect to you. If you are in the army, if a loved one is in the army, I could never, ever do it. So much respect. But it's the ones that want to join it for the wrong reasons and the ones that are so fucking insane that they're like, you can't be here.

Yes, always a bit of a red flag. The opposite of getting kicked out of drama school, in my opinion. I think all of the best people get kicked out of drama school. But the army, no, if they don't want you there, big, big trouble. After being discharged from the army, Franz's parents found him a job at a mine in the city of Wellkom in the Free State. And for the next few years, Franz de Toy seemed to settle down. He found himself a place to live, and then a wife, and eventually they had a daughter. But this period of tranquility was not to last. Shortly after his daughter was

born, Franz left his wife, saying that she was unable to satisfy him sexually. Lovely. She's just had a baby. Sounds like a you problem, Franz. Anyway, not long after that, Franz was accused of raping several women. And we don't know much about these cases, but a term that has come up a few times in the research that we've done for this episode is gentleman rapist. It's an outdated oxymoron that's used to describe men who rape women while trying to maintain that the act is consensual. This might refer to situations in which the victim is forced to say that they are enjoying the assault or to victims who are too drunk or vulnerable to give consent. So you can see it's pretty far from gentlemanly, but it is exactly the MO for Franz de Toy. Surrounded by a cloud of incredibly grim accusations, Franz needed to move away from Velkom and start fresh again. And this time,

once again, his parents came to the rescue, finding him a job doing deliveries for a local stationery shop in the city of Port Elizabeth. Predictably, however, this only lasted a matter of months before de Toi was fired for stealing from the company. He was taken to court by his employer, and he received a three-year suspended sentence. Finding himself once more out on his arse with not much to show for himself, Datoi took the inevitable next step and started to dabble in petty crime. And he began running what the South Africans call a shibin. And it's similar, like, to a speakeasy.

A shibin is a club or bar that sells cheap, untaxed, unregistered, and generally pretty iffy alcohol that may or may not make you blind, presumably. And it was while he was running his shibin that de Toy met his soon-to-be partner in crime, Tien's Kruger. Kruger and de Toy quickly became best of buds. Both of them shared a love of the occult, both thought that they had some kind of connection to real life demons,

and both had a deep desire for violent, non-consensual sex. This is just like blows my mind because I'm like, there are loads of things I'm interested in and I literally almost never run into people that have any of the same interests as me. It's a rare thing when it happens, right? I mean, that's how this podcast started for fuck's sake how are you just like thinking that you have connections with real life demons and a deep desire for violent non-consensual sex and just running immediately into someone who's also into the exact same thing i can't even find people to talk to me about love is blind maybe there was something in that um that moonshine alcohol that just makes everyone be like you know what I too believe in demons and love rape.

I see, I see. And this chance meeting would lead us all the way back to the beginning of our story. Alison Botha's in her car and Tehan's Kruger was about to get in it too. Alison and the man she believed to be called Clinton, who's obviously not Clinton at all, he's Franz de Toy, had been driving for a while before Kruger's name came into the conversation. Clinton, or Franz, had been making small talk with Alison as they drove further and further away from her home. He'd been asking her all sorts of questions about her family life, her job, and if she had a boyfriend.

Eventually, though, he let slip that they would be joined by a friend. It was at this point that Alison, who had been trying to convince herself that maybe things would just be fine, realised that they would definitely not. As they pulled over to pick up Kruger on the outskirts of Port Elizabeth, Alison knew that the man getting in the back of her car had nothing but the worst of intentions. Unlike Clinton, this new stranger put up no pretense of politeness. When Alison looked into the rearview mirror, she saw nothing but hate and loathing staring back at her. It's like a horror film. Totally, totally.

This is just every person's worst fucking nightmare. And the fact that it happens from the driveway of her parents' home. I mean, again, it's just that when your guard is at its lowest, you're inside a car, which you already feel safe. You're in the driveway of your parents' house. And then this is where the nightmare begins. And the idea of being one man driving the car that you're in and another in the back who is just staring at you the way that he is. So get this. The Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader.

Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Her first act as leader, asking donors for a million bucks for her salary. That's excessive. She's a big carbon tax supporter. Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah. Higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals.

They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti.

It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance, but it instantly moved me and it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding and this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

So let's talk a little bit more about the man sat in the back, Kruger. Because Detoy may have had his issues as a child, but Kruger was every bit the hate-filled demon child that Franz was just pretending to be. Unlike de Toi, Kruger had not grown up in relative comfort with parents who constantly righted his wrongs for him. Kruger's father had left his mother while she was still pregnant and was in prison before he was even born. Kruger's mum was married three times throughout in prison before he was even born. Kruger's mum was married three times throughout his childhood and he experienced severe violence at home. Kruger has also since

said that his stepdad sexually abused him. Again, unlike Franz, Tien's Kruger didn't cruise through school. He was neither academically gifted nor popular. In fact, he was mercilessly bullied for having a third nipple and we're back at the nicknames guys um this isn't my favorite because it's it's quite on the nose or on the nipple whatever um he was nicknamed dreetid which just means three tits yeah it's not um not the best it's not the best it's no keth no i actually wrote down a list of great nicknames for under the duvet. Oh, I can't wait. I cannot remember a single one of them for the fucking life of me because I'm so tired. We'll save it.

I've got them. I can't wait. The people that were his friends, supposedly, actually nicknamed him Damien after the kid from The Omen and also Chucky. So Kruger would later say that the only person that he ever liked in his entire life was his aunt, who he lived with, because she was kind to him and gave him food. I mean, you're really seeing a psychopath formation here. I know, obviously, he is a kid at this point and we don't know that much about his backstory and he does seem to have had a very rough childhood, but I can't help but feel like the only person he likes

is the only person that seems to be useful to him. Yes, it does appear that way, doesn't it? Thanks to the bullying and his dre-tit reputation, Teyon struggled to form any kind of romantic relationships at all and began to resent women from a very early age. Kruger started drinking and taking drugs in his early teens and, like Dettoy, he began to take an interest in the spookier side of life. Also like Dettoy, Kruger claimed to have had a relationship with a witch and firmly believed that he was influenced by the devil.

A psychiatrist would later say that Kruger was easy to influence. He enjoyed Satanism because it gave him a feeling of belonging. He yearned for demonic power because of his incredibly low self-worth. And also I think that the magical thinking that Tutoy and Franz to an extent display by thinking that they have a relationship, a real life relationship to demons and that Satan is talking to them. I mean, we obviously, we don't know enough about them and we are not mental health professionals, but it does sort of point the finger at something like maybe a schizotypal where they engage in that kind of magical thinking, where their life is more than what it seems and it's beyond the mundane. Yeah, it totally could be. I think they know they're making it up. Oh, well, that's interesting. So you think not delusional, but they know.

I think it's very childish, but I don't think they really believe it at all. So when Kruger and de Toi finally met each other at the Shibin, it was a match made in hell, pretend or otherwise. So these two wannabe Satan worshippers with so much in common found each other, which would be quite sweet if they weren't utterly horrific pieces of human shit. De Toi was a conscience-free manipulator, and Kruger was easy to manipulate. So the world was their oyster.

After driving for what must have felt like a lifetime, Dutoy pulled over in Alison's car. The trio were out in the desert, miles from Port Elizabeth. Once Dutoy had stopped the car, he asked Alison one final question. Are you going to put up a fight? Sensing that compliance was her only hope of survival, Alison said that she wouldn't. Then the two men told Alison to get out of the car. In the middle of the desert, surrounded by nothing but burnt out old campfires, Franz, the more dominant of the pair, decided that he was going first, and he forced Alison to perform oral sex on him.

Then, in his twisted view of himself as a gentleman rapist, he then forced himself on Alison and performed oral sex on her. This seems like a good point in the story to take a second to talk about something that a lot of people like to avoid. Whilst Franz was forcibly performing oral sex on Alison, she had an orgasm. Yes, and before we go on, I just want to say that gentleman rapist is kind of the outdated term, like we just mentioned. The official term that is used by profilers, by people who work in the criminal field, is power reassurance rapist. So this kind of rapist, you have multiple different types. You have the power reassurance rapist, you have things like the anger excitation rapist, which is more like obviously all rape is sadistic, but the anger

excitation rapist is getting off on the screaming and the no and the fighting back. The power reassurance rapist almost wants it to pretend it's a consensual sexual encounter, like a girlfriend experience. They'll even often ask their victims how it is for them. Was it good for them? And this is why you see him doing something to her that feels very counterintuitive to how we would view rape. And that's why I think this is such an important case for us to talk about. Exactly. And despite what incels on 4chan might have you believe,

someone having an orgasm during a rape is no sign of enjoyment, nor is it one of consent. No. And I think that this harks back to like another case, not harks back, harks forward, because we haven't done it yet, that Hannah and I were discussing the other day in our office, because, you know, welcome to the fun zone

of us talking about different types of rape. I really hope that our door is soundproof, man, because some of the stuff we talk about in there is just outrageous. I know, it's pretty grim. But yeah, in that case, we were talking about men being raped, right? And how some people, some ignorant people will be like, oh, well, how would that happen? Because how was you getting a hard-on?

And be like, go listen to the testimony of any teenage boy or man who's been sexually abused, and they will tell you that their body will betray them, that their body will have a physical response to something that is happening, an external stimuli, but it is in no way a show of consent. So I think your body can react in one way while your brain is still very much rooted in that this is not consensual. So let's just, you know, make that very, very clear. Whilst writing this episode, we really wanted to set the record straight on this. And we found a pretty well-rounded article, I would call it, in Popular Science. And we will obviously leave a link to it.

But here are the basics. Around 5% of survivors report having orgasmed during their assault. And obviously that's how many people have reported it. So the dark figure there must be absolutely enormous. Because imagine how confusing it would be and how people who are survivors of rape already feel filled with shame. The idea of then coming forward and not just saying that you were sexually assaulted and raped, but also to say that you orgasmed as a result of it. How, I mean, that number must be so, so much larger. Yeah, we think it's estimated to be closer to 40%.

So that is a significant leap. That's unbelievable. And it's because, just as Saru said, sexual arousal is an automatic response. It is not necessarily linked to enjoyment or consent to what is happening. Any teenager will tell you that it's perfectly possible to become aroused without any kind of mental or physical stimulation. And that's just because arousal is a reflex. Luckily for most of us, once the terrors of puberty are over, that reflex is normally triggered on our own terms

with the stimulations of a consenting sexual partner or ourselves. Which is the most important sexual relationship you will ever have. Well, there you go. But as we said the reflex of sexual arousal can be triggered without intent or consent from the person being aroused. Therapists speaking to survivors often use the analogy of tickling. Some people don't mind being tickled but we all know the feeling of being tickled without our consent. Desperately telling someone to stop while uncontrollably squirming and laughing. Even if you're not enjoying it, you'll laugh when you're being tickled because laughing is an uncontrollable response to the stimulus of being tickled.

It's not necessarily a sign that you're enjoying yourself. I think tickling is abuse. Yeah. I really do. I don't enjoy being tickled, but I don't mind it. I think when it's children and they're saying stop and you're not stopping, like I think that's outrageous. Yeah, no, it's truly not something I think you should force on people. The reason I'm laughing is because if ACD face ever hears this, he will be like, you fucking lying bitch, because he hates it.

And I will do it sometimes. But back to this. In the same way as tickling, an erection, vaginal lubrication, and orgasm are all uncontrollable responses to the stimuli of sex. And this is slightly on a tangent, but I remember watching a documentary years and years ago where they were measuring the responses of men and women to different sexual stimuli. And interestingly, they found that men were more likely to be turned on by images of their own sexual orientation being shown to them. So obviously straight men turned on by same-sex female sex, like we all know that. But the women are turned on by almost anything, including animals having sex.

Oh, for God's sake. I know. Every time. I will not stop. So yes, it's not a choice that you're making. And the point I made with that documentary reference is the women that were showing vaginal lubrication as a result of being shown animals having sex aren't necessarily turned on by that. It's an automatic response that's happening to them. So yes, these things are not signs of enjoyment or consent. The reality is that most sexual experiences are consensual, and therefore,

for most people, excitement and lust go hand in hand with sexual arousal. But as anyone who's struggled to get an erection or has had to reach for the lube will tell you, those two things do also not go hand in hand. So yes, you could be having a great time, you could be fully consenting, but also on the flip side, be unable to have the physical response that you want to have the good news for you is uh our rape orgasm chat is over but with good news there is always bad news and this is quite bad news the story just gets a lot worse from here once the toy had finished performing oral sex on allison he turned to kruger and asked if he wanted to have sex with her to which tians replied no he wanted to fuck her in quote unquote and then the band a

short argument franz berated teons for using such bad language in front of allison oh he really does play into that that role of the quote unquote gentleman rapist the power reassurance rapist like he really wants to portray himself as this hero. Not in front of the lady. Again, Franz is committing to the idea that his victims are consenting to his assault. However, as much as Franz believed that he was a gentleman, whatever happened next more than proved otherwise. Franz watched on as Théon's brutally choked and raped Alison.

Once he'd finished, the pair began to discuss what they should do with Alison now that they were done with her. Realising that they'd let their guards down and revealed their real names in front of her, they agreed that Alison had to die. I mean, this is the thing. It's like when they got into the car, one of the things, if I were in this situation,

that would have haunted you from the start is knowing that neither of them are wearing a mask. They've shown you their faces. They're not going to let you get out of this alive. Yeah. So the next thing she knew, Franz was lunging at Alison with a knife, stabbing and slashing at her over 30 times in the abdomen, as though Franz was deliberately targeting her reproductive organs. Franz then stopped, assuming that Alison was now surely dead. But just as the pair were ready to leave, one of Alison's legs twitched. Angry that she wasn't giving up life as easily as they'd hoped,

de Toy and Kruger pounced on Alison again, and together they slit her throat 17 times. At this point, checking that Alison had died was a formality, so the pair got back in her car and left her there, lying naked in the desert. As Alison lay there, alone, listening to her own breathing as it croaked through her severed windpipe, she was sure that she was going to die, and she began to have what is commonly known as an out-of-body experience. Now, we're not here to split hairs with someone who's just been through absolute hell. So we are not going to pick apart Alison's beliefs here.

Some people believe that out-of-body experiences and near-death experiences are spiritual phenomena, explicable via spirituality. And others believe that they are a result of a chemical cocktail coursing through your veins during an incredibly traumatic event. Either way, Alison felt as though she was looking down at her brutalised body. And she decided that she had a choice. She could either pass on, or she could return to her body. Alison decided that she was going to do everything she could to survive,

even if it was only long enough to make sure that her attackers were caught. With what strength she had, Alison began scraping the names Franz and Tejans into the sand. Then she wrote, I love mum, and decided she should try and stand up. As Alison began to take stock of her situation and started to try to move around, she felt something wet on her legs. When she looked down, she realised that that feeling was her intestines draping over her thighs like a skirt. If this was a horror movie, I'd be like, this is the most unimaginative, fucking, just brutal gore fest. What have you even bothered to make this?

Exactly. It just feels completely detached from any sort of reality. Unimaginable is 100% the word. Trying to stay proactive, Alison reached over and grabbed her shirt, which was lying on the dirt next to her. And using her shirt, she tried her best to gather up her intestines and bring them closer to her body. And then she made an attempt to stand up. I honestly can't say that I would. I mean, obviously, you don't know what you're going to do in this situation, but the sight of that, how that doesn't send you into just a, it might just be okay if I just lay back down and don't look at this anymore.

I mean, yeah, I mean, it's hard to know. It must be sort of a survival mode thing. This is the thing. I don't even know why I'm trying to understand it because this is just something our brains cannot comprehend, right? And something else our brains cannot comprehend is what happens next, because Alison did manage to get up. But that is far from the end of her problems. As she stood, her world went black.

She assumed that she was going to pass out. But actually, the muscles and tenders in her neck were severed and her head had lolled backwards so that she was looking straight up at the night sky. I told you. I didn't want to do it. I want to go home. This is just so... It's awful.

It's horrendous. Because I think, okay, spoilers, Alison survives. I think that's fine to say at this point to make you all feel less fucking miserable. But I think that's the harrowing thing about this case, right? Is that in cases where the person has passed away, you never hear it from their perspective. You can look at the you have the person surviving and then telling you how they went through that series of situations to tell you that she thought she was going to pass out but it's because her head rolled back and she was looking at the black sky that is not something I'm ever going to forget so thank you and you're welcome but Alison doesn't panic she thinks

practically one of her hands is busy holding her intestine so she uses her free hand to push her Thank you and you're welcome. But Alison doesn't panic. She thinks practically. One of her hands is busy holding her intestine, so she uses her free hand to push her head back onto her shoulders, or forward, I suppose, and started making her way back to the main road. The distance between where Alison was left and the main road was a fucking long way. And her explanation for how she ended up on the road was that she was lifted there by an

angel. And you know what, if I made that journey holding my head forward and my intestines in, I'd probably think an angel had done that too. And I don't already believe in those things. It's like no one is an atheist when their car is aquaplaning. Exactly. The other explanation would be that despite her incredibly brutal injuries, Alison was able to shuffle her way, slowly back, the way she'd been taken. Either way, whether it was, you know, adrenaline coursing through her body that allowed her to keep going,

or whether it really was something from beyond, Alison found herself back on the main road, naked, in a heap, with her gut spilling out of her. Eventually, after laying there for quite some time, a pair of headlights began to get closer from the distance. Not knowing whether it was her attackers or a potential saviour, Alison could do nothing but wait. But in the end, it was neither. The car slowed down next to Alison, but it didn't stop, and it just left her there on the road, just like Mary Vincent. I know we had this conversation when we did Mary Vincent. I would like to think I would stop.

I would not in South Africa. No way. I wouldn't stop. No. And obviously, when you're looking at it from Alison's perspective, this is a nightmare scenario. But also, from the person in the car's perspective, this is an absolutely harrowing sight that you're coming across. You don't know what's going on. Distraction to get people out of cars is quite common. Oh, yeah. So eventually, another pair of headlights came into view,

and this time, thankfully, the car stopped. An out stepped a 20-year-old veterinary student, Tian Eilid. Tian was driving along with a few friends when he saw what they thought was a dead body. Understandably, they freaked out, but thankfully they were brave enough to take a look. And when Tian knelt down next to Alison, he realised that she was somehow still alive, against all of the odds. While Tian tried his best to comfort Alison and improve her condition, one of his mates called an ambulance.

They waited an eternity for it to arrive. The ambulance took over 50 minutes to get to them and drove incredibly slowly back to the hospital. It was as though they had already assumed Alison wouldn't pull through. Unbelievably, Alison did make it to the hospital alive. The on-call staff were utterly floored by her intense injuries. They were by far and away the most graphic injuries anyone in the intensive care unit had ever seen on a living person. But Alison wasn't just alive. She was awake. She was conscious enough to sign her consent form and write down her mum's phone number.

What? Why is there a consent form? I mean, there has to be. Really? When you come in with your guts hanging out, I'd be like... I mean, yeah, if you're conscious, they have to ask you. Oh, well, there you go. If she was unconscious, they would have just taken a straight in. Wow.

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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 from Alison the Unbelievable, just keeps coming. The surgeon on call that night happened to be an ear, nose and throat specialist. And in theory, they didn't really have the experience they needed to cover all of Alison's injuries. But by chance, by total chance, that particular surgeon had trained in India, where they were taught general surgery as well as their specialist subject. So because of this, the surgeon was able to perform the intense surgery that Alison needed to give her even a chance of pulling through.

This included scrubbing away the huge amount of dirt and debris that had been stuck to her intestines, as well as repairing her savaged trachea. That being said, it seemed that luck was once again on Alison's side. Because despite being out of her body for well over two hours, Alison's intestines had somehow stayed relatively intact. Which is pretty amazing. I don't know how up close you've seen an intestine, but they're not, like, thick. The fact that they're not punctured is miraculous. Yeah.

And on top of this, during the brutal assault, neither of her attackers had damaged her heart or lungs, again massively increasing her chances of survival. And in the end, as we said, Alison miraculously did make it. She was discharged to the ward after a remarkably short stay in intensive care. It wasn't all good news, though. The general prognosis was that Alison wouldn't ever be able to have kids and that the quality of her life would be permanently affected by her horrific injuries. True to form, though, Alison didn't let this news hold her back. It took her friends and family a few days to build up the courage to come and visit her in hospital. And when they did, they were shocked by her condition.

Not only were Alison's wounds healing, but mentally she was handling the situation fantastically well. Everyone was stunned when her first written words to her family were to stop crying because she hadn't cracked a nail. To clarify that she can't speak because obviously her entire throat has been reconstructed so that's why she's writing stuff down. So on top of maintaining some good humour she was also maintaining her focus on catching her attackers. From the moment she was awake she wanted to communicate with the police and when the police arrived she immediately wrote down the names, Franz and Tejans, before picking both men out of a collection of potential suspect pictures. Police told Alison that this evidence was fantastic given the circumstances, but that they would have a higher chance of conviction if they could hear the names of her attackers come from her own mouth.

And they say that because the attacker's defence counsel would say that there was no proof that it was her that wrote the name is in the sand. I don't follow that 100%, but the police decide they need her to say it out loud. Wow. All right. Now, presumably the police thought that they would have to put the investigation on pause for a few weeks while Alison recovered enough to talk. Not Alison though. She told the doctors to pull out the stint supporting her trachea immediately, even if it risked damage further down the line. And with it removed, Alison was able to say the names, Franz and Tien's, to the police, sealing both men's fate. Once the police had everything they

needed from Alison, they got to work finding the pair, and this was a simple enough task, and once they had both in their custody, Franz and Tien's were floored. Neither man had any idea that Alison had survived, and when Detective Humple, who arrested Franz, told him that Alison had pointed to his picture in a lineup, he was so thrown that he actually confessed immediately. In fact, he even took off a bloodied ring that belonged to Alison that he had stolen and handed it to Humple. Despite having both of her attackers banked to rights,

Alison's ordeal was far from over. Not only did she have her abdomen scraped out multiple times to avoid infection, she went through intense plastic surgery. And she also had to go through a whole host of invasive tests to back up her story. But Alison being Alison takes it like an absolute champ. She was even able to pick out Kruger and Detoy from behind a one-way mirror. And once the case went to trial, Alison was thrown into the spotlight. On the plus side, the trial led to two other women coming forward,

saying that they had also been threatened by the two men, which gave even more weight to Alison's case. On the downside, as I'm sure you can imagine, the whole thing became a media circus, which was something Alison found a lot harder to deal with than the trial itself. On the stand, Franz de Toy, ever the narcissist, told the court that he'd been possessed by demons and that he wanted to see a pastor and the court actually granted his request because a pastor visited to toy and later told the court that he was indeed possessed by an incubus and a succubus someone needs to send that pastor back to demon school send him to fucking jail that's where he should somebody isn't uh completely up to date with their thomas aquinas studies you can't have an incubus and a succubus in the same body at the same time.

That's ridiculous. Get out. Get the fuck out, pastor. And, I mean, whatever, because actually, all in all, this didn't do great things for de Toy's case at all. Most of the court saw him for the pompous little narcissistic shit that he was. In fact, Detective Humple was so done with de Toy that he refused to handcuff him on the way out of court, telling de Toy that he wanted him to run so that he could shoot him.

I'm not advocating that, but I'm just saying. No, I know what you mean. So similarly, Judge Jay Jansen was so affected by the case. Because imagine, we're feeling this way just hearing us talk about this. The people in that court, the judge, the jury, everybody there would have seen pictures of Alison's injuries when she was brought into the hospital. I cannot even begin to imagine how brutal all of this was. And so the judge, who was so affected by this case, actually wrote down a note in the court documents for the next judge who had to deal with the pair. Presumably if there are appeals, if they ever are released and then commit something like this again, because he said that he wanted to absolutely make sure that even after he died,

that neither of them would ever be released. And thankfully, on the 7th of August 1995, Franz and Tejans were both found guilty of kidnapping, rape and attempted murder. Franz de Tooy was handed three life sentences without parole and Tejans Kruger was given a full life sentence plus 25 years, again without parole. Once the trial was over, Alison moved back in with her mum and began the slow process of relearning life with her injuries. With the trial now over, Alison fell into a severe depression. She felt like Kruger and Detoy had irreversibly ruined

her life. Going back to work was difficult and Alison struggled to control her diet. For a while, it looked like things really were all that bad. However, surely by this stage in the episode, we have all learned never to write off Alison Botha. Eventually, while sinking deeper into a pit of depression, Alison began thinking about what it was that had motivated her to keep going when she was lying on the desert floor with her guts in her lap. She remembered thinking that she wanted the chance to do something more with her life, to make her mark on the world.

Slowly, Alison realised that the more she used her trauma as an excuse to stagnate, the more power she was giving her attackers. After deciding she needed to make a change, Alison got the chance to talk at her local Rotary Club, and she never looked back. Alison has gone on to become an international speaker and public figure, and an inspiration to millions of survivors around the world. She's given countless talks about her experiences and has helped others to start the process of healing. Alison is now a firm believer that you can't

control what happens in your life, but you can control what you do with it. She's only been overwhelmed by depression once since becoming a speaker, that's when Kruger and de Toit applied for parole in 2015. Not only did she fear that she would have to relive the court case and the media circus all over again but she was also contacted by a member of Franz de Toit's family. It wasn't his mother or his father, neither had anything to do with him after his imprisonment. His father actually sadly took his own life just two years after his son went to court no allison was in fact contacted by detoy's mother-in-law yes because he somehow has a fiancee isn't that wild i mean fucking i was gonna say takes one to know one i don't know what i'm trying to say what am i trying to say there's all sorts i'm not exclaiming at the fact he has a fiance I'm exclaiming that that woman's

mother is sticking her fucking oar in for some reason I mean I don't I just don't get any of this I don't get any of this and no I am like how does he have a fiance who the fuck is your fiance what are you thinking I'm sorry I just think these people who are with like people like Franz de Toy I do not understand but it is something we've seen before we've never seen a mother-in-law no yes you're right you're right so this mother-in-law asked for help in detoy's appeal but allison wasn't having any of it and instead wrote to the court specifically asking for him never to be released good i mean the idea that as a mother you would... Because, yeah, you're right. We have seen that before with women being in love

with fucking crazy people like this. But, like, the mother-in-law. What, you want this man to get out so he can be with your daughter? Yeah, exactly. What? Yeah, what? Yeah, I'd love my daughter to marry a gentleman rapist.

Fantastic. Don't panic. Dutoy and Kruger's parole applications were both denied. But not before Dutoy could add one more page to the narcissist's textbook. He used his parole application as a platform to attempt to start a legal battle with Alison Botha. Oh my God. I can't cope. I'm going to struggle to even say this. Murder. Murder. He said that he was owed a portion of all of Alison's speaking

arrangement fees because she wouldn't be a success without him. Sure. Okay. I'm just speechless. Of course, that did not go anywhere. And Alison is still very much living her best life with all of her hard-earned money. And let's end with one last bit of good news. Not only is Alison an inspiration to millions of people, she's pulled off the impossible again, twice. Despite being told that she would never, ever children oh she has two yay i'm gonna cry and remember the vet the veterinary student tian that pulled over and saved allison's life did you buy him a puppy they got married i'm kidding

if only no sorry to lead you astray there. After seeing Alison on the way to hospital, he decided to make a career change from animal doctor to human doctor. So now he saves human lives instead of pet ones. And because of that career change, he was a part of the team that assisted Alison with the birth of her second child. Yeah, that's nice, isn't it? I'm crying. I know, you actually are. I'm crying.

I can't cope. That's just, just I don't know I just think like it's just so much it's just so much I don't know how I don't know how like you obviously want to think that you would do that what Alison did and you would like get yourself out of the desert you would get to the road you would get home you would fucking pull that shit out of your trachea and be like these two guys did it but like fucking hell this is just something else it truly is but yeah there you go that is the story of alice and both shall i tell you a story that it's not going to cheer anyone well it might make you laugh i heard it the other day and it made me laugh probably a bit too loud okay it's just because of how i was feeling during bits of this episode where we were

talking about particularly visceral things yes i'm i'm not into gore i'm not a big fan of that i find it very when we're talking about that kind of thing I went for dinner with my good friend the other day and we used to work together at my last company and I won't say her name because it's slightly embarrassing but she was like we're talking about our friends who have recently had babies and she was like oh sorry like one of my really good friends had a baby like 18 months ago and then it's only now that she's like talked about the birth because she was like it was quite traumatic she was like i was on the phone with her and she started to tell me about it and she was like i had a water birth and she was like i was just losing so much water and she was like the water was just red with my blood

and my friend was like okay i i know there's more that you want to tell me about like your recovery and what happened after that and everything she was like rushed into theater all of that kind of stuff she's fine now baby's fine baby's beautiful everything's all good and so my friend was like please I love you but I can't listen to this anymore because I feel like I'm gonna be sick and so her friend was like okay no problem so then she was like I was at her birthday party a couple of weeks ago we were at this really nice fancy restaurant we were all dressed up it's like 15 girls there and um you know a few of them have since had babies so everybody's talking about their baby stories and then my friend starts to tell the story again and my friend is like and something just started to happen and i was like feeling like oh my god i'm not i'm feeling kind of hot

i'm feeling a bit warm and she was like and i started to get up because i thought i was going to pass out so let me just get away and thought, I can't tell her to stop telling her story in front of all these people that want to hear it. So I'm just going to get up and go to the toilet until this is done or talk to somebody else. She goes, but as I went to get up. That's the worst thing you can do. I threw up all over. Oh, my God. Everything.

And she was like, we had just arrived. So these people in this restaurant must have just thought I was like absolutely hammered. But we just got there. And it was like seven o'clock. Oh no. And she was like, they cleaned it up and it was fine. But she was like, but then I had to sit there and everyone was like, oh my God, did you actually just fucking throw up at the dinner table? And I just thought that that was.

Oh wow. And I was starting to feel a little bit like that at points during this story. I'm not... I mean, until recently, now I'm puking all the time, which is weird, but this morning, there was nothing in there. I'm not pregnant. It would be a fucking miracle if I am.

But yeah, I'm not a reactionary vommer. Like, I don't feel nauseous. I don't get car sick. Things don't make me feel unwell. So I find it extremely... Like, I can't relate to the feeling of, like, I find something disgusting, so I'm physically going to throw up. That's mad. But yeah, when she told me that, I was like, oh, my God, that is so rough.

That is so rough. But anyway, that's it. That's it, guys. One in three women are traumatized by their births. I mean, I fucking believe it. And I have been traumatized by at least three births that I've heard about already. So there you go. But no, that's it, everyone. We hope you enjoyed that.

You asked for it. So it's done now. And yeah, we'll be back next week with some other things. And if you write to us about how upset you are about this episode, I will give you a parental lecture

about how sometimes not getting what you ask for is for the best. Exactly. And you didn't for the best. Exactly. And you didn't listen to me, so... Bye! Bye! 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, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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