September 2, 2025 • 35 mins
Season 22 : Family Annihilators Part 2
Henri van Breda claimed that a masked intruder broke into his house and attacked his family with an axe, but after an investigation turned up no sign of a break in and no sign of an intruder on the heavily surveilled property he lived on, authorities suspected the attacker had already been inside the home.
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Henri van Breda claimed that a masked intruder broke into his house and attacked his family with an axe, but after an investigation turned up no sign of a break in and no sign of an intruder on the heavily surveilled property he lived on, authorities suspected the attacker had already been inside the home.
Sinister Podcast : https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/sinister--5428204
Sinister YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/@SomewhereSinister
Or search for "Somewhere Sinister" where ever you listen to podcasts.
Our Regular Merch Hosted by FourthWall! : https://thisismonsters.com/
GTFOH Doormats : https://this-is-monsters.printify.me/
Socials:
LinkTree : https://linktr.ee/thisismonsters
Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/thisis_monsters/
Threads : https://www.threads.net/@thisis_monsters
My other shows:
This is Monsters YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/@thisisMONSTERS
Vlog : https://www.youtube.com/@jileswithaj
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Henry van Berdah was in the bedroom of his family
home during the early hours of January twenty seventh, twenty fifteen,
when he heard a noise coming from the nearby bedroom
he shared with his brother Rudy. Curious as to who
else was awake at the time, he peered out of
the doorway into the bedroom and was shocked to see
a well built black mail shrouded by darkness and wearing
(00:22):
both gloves and a bolaklava, striking his sleeping sibling with
an axe. Panic began to set in for the young man,
and that was why he immediately shouted for his father, Martin,
who woke up and quickly came running to help his son. Unfortunately,
Martin van Berdah would not be able to stop the
mysterious figure who was attacking Rudy. The intruder would end
(00:44):
up overpowering the father and fatally striking him in the
head with the same axe as before. As that was happening,
Henry remained frozen in place in the bathroom, unable to
move out of terror over what he was seeing, and
that was where he remained as the intruder proceeded to
finish off not only Rudy, but also killed Teresa and Marley,
the mother and daughter of the household. In fact, Henry
(01:07):
didn't build up the courage to get involved at all
until the man then attacked him. Thankfully, though, he was
able to fight the masked figure off, even if he
did get injured in the process. He was then able
to chase him away, all before calling his girlfriend at
around four forty two am to tell her that something
terrible had occurred and that he needed help. At least,
(01:29):
that was the story Henry would initially tell authorities when
they later showed up at the scene. In truth, though,
as it would eventually be revealed, no such mystery figure
had existed. No. This had all instead been a poorly
thought out way to cover up the fact that he
was the one who had attacked all four members of
his family with an axe in one of the most
brutal crimes imaginable. This is monsters. Before we begin, I
(02:20):
just want to make sure you know that my other show,
Sinister is back up and there are three episodes a week.
They're dark stories from history, and if you like this show,
you'll probably like that one. Give it a shot. There
are links in the description. Thanks the van Berdah family
seemed like a pretty normal Christian household as far as
(02:40):
the outside world could tell, or at least as normal
as a family who had enough money to own the
Dezel's golf estate and Stellenbosch, South Africa could be. After all,
they were successful, well liked within their community and didn't
seem to have any obvious dark secrets that were being
hidden away, with the exception of their youngest son, hen
that was. But even then, while Henry's apparent drug abuse
(03:04):
was somewhat known about by the locals, it wasn't like
it made him a complete social pariah amongst his community,
at least not initially. If anything, it just gave him
the label of being a bit of a black sheep,
and people assumed he would eventually straighten himself out. It
wasn't as if his father, Martin wasn't able to use
his considerable money and influence as the managing director of
(03:25):
his local branch of Engel and Vulgars, a German real
estate company, to get him out of a jam whenever
those occurred, and it wasn't like his mother Teresa wasn't
always there to try to bring him back down to
earth too. Even his siblings, twenty two year old Rudy
two years his senior and sixteen year old Marley four
years his junior, always wanted the best for their brother.
(03:47):
But even if that was the case, it wasn't always
possible to give Henry the best as sometimes the sad
reality is that an addict can simply be their own
worst enemy, and it appears that was the case for
the young man once he got to the point of
reaching his late teens, his drug use got so bad
that once he graduated school and briefly moved over to
(04:07):
Australia with his family here in the nickname of Druggie.
One close acquaintance of the Van Berdaff family later claimed
that those issues had gotten Henry kicked out of university
and that that had been considered a huge black eye
as far as his parents were concerned. Of course, that
wasn't the story the family presented at the time, though
(04:28):
No the way they framed it, Henry had simply chosen
to drop out of his course and return home to
South Africa, with his reasons for that being vague. While
many around the Van Berdahs were at least to some
degree aware about the young man's issues, the family still
felt the need to keep up appearances. That said, once
things were behind closed doors, arguments would regularly start with them,
(04:52):
almost always centering around how Henry was throwing his life
away and how his parents could only do so much
to get him back on track. The thing they were
particularly struggling with after they moved back to South Africa
was getting him into another good school. But despite the
initial difficulties in doing so, Henry eventually managed to get
enrolled at Stellenbosch University. Not long after he arrived there,
(05:16):
his issues would become apparent all over again as his
drug use once more took center stage ahead of his studies.
After a while, it even started to take a physical
toll on him, as those around the boy couldn't help
but notice how thin and pallid looking he was, growing
like a man who was doing everything in his power
to self destruct right in front of the world. One
(05:37):
neighbor named Robert Minies would later encapsulate the vibe Henry
was giving off during that period when he said of
the boy quote what struck me was the way he
always looked as if he wasn't quite all there, in
a trance, almost as if he wanted to say, go on,
hit me, that's right. By then, what had once been
a mere case of a black sheep amongst a well
(05:59):
to do family was becoming more and more of a
concern as people started to become scared of him. And
that wasn't the only example of Henry van Bredah causing
issues amongst the local community. There was also the time
where a domestic worker at his family home named Margaret
Delport was the target of a barrage of obscene remarks
from the young man while he was under the influence.
(06:21):
Those remarks would be mimicked a year later, when, about
two weeks prior to the murders taking place, he and
a couple of similarly strung out friends created a scene
at a shopping center just outside of Stellenbosch by loudly
singing and dancing in front of a crowd of shoppers,
all while Henry exposed his genitals and shouted at nearby women,
telling them all the sword things he wanted to do
(06:44):
to them. Obviously, that kind of behavior couldn't carry on
unchecked forever, and the family knew that by that point
they'd even take into talking the problem over with friends
rather than trying to hide it anymore for the sake
of keeping up appearances. As one friend of the household
later put it, quote, Teresa was sometimes so exhausted from
(07:05):
sitting up all night with Henry that his dad had
to take the children to school in her place. Martin
knew his younger son was taking drugs. At some point
he threatened to cut off his allowance. He had high
expectations of his children. At one stage, he was very
concerned when he found Dogga in Henry's possession. Of course, Dogga,
(07:27):
a popular strain of cannabis in South Africa, was far
from the worst thing Henry was putting into his body
by then, but with his father not being as educated
on drugs, one substance seemed to be as bad as
the next as far as he was concerned. So in
twenty fourteen, after finally reaching his breaking point, he demanded
that his son go to a private rehabilitation center and
(07:49):
mental health treatment facility in Loevenstein, Belleville, where he was
hoped he would deal with all of his issues in
one fell swoop, getting him clean of drugs, all while
sorting out any underlying emotional issues he was suffering from.
But If that stay did anything to quell Henry's issues,
it obviously didn't stick, as once he was back home again,
he quickly returned to his old ways. That would all
(08:12):
lead to the unfortunate events of January twenty seventh, twenty fifteen,
where clearly something critical broke down within the young man
and caused him to commit one of the worst crimes imaginable.
Henry had called emergency services, but it was eventually revealed
that it was three hours after the murders had taken place.
Henry would claim that the delay was due to him
(08:35):
losing consciousness after the attack. That claim is contradicted by
the fact that Henry called his girlfriend directly after the murders.
When he finally did call the authorities, they rushed to
the scene. What they found upon setting foot on the
property was one of the more gruesome scenes which had
ever taken place in South Africa, as Martin, Teresa, and
(08:56):
Rudy van Berdah were all dead, butchered with an axe.
As for Marley, the youngest of the household, she had
also been savagely attacked, though somehow had managed to cling
to life despite suffering from the same severe head trauma
which had killed three other members of her family, she
had not succumbed to death herself. She was immediately rushed
(09:18):
to a nearby hospital, where it was hoped she could
be saved. Then there was Henry, the only member of
the family who had escaped relatively unharmed. Sure, he did
have multiple knife wounds on his body, something which was
apparent to see as soon as the cops arrived and
found him sitting outside on the doorstep close bloody, but
aside from that, he looked physically fine, even if he
(09:40):
was clearly in a lot of emotional distress. He claimed
that he had been able to fight the intruder off
before they could do any real harm, and for the moment,
the authorities accepted that pretty quickly, though, some problems with
the official story started being noticed. Why was it that
Henry had chosen to call his girlfriend fee before calling
(10:01):
the emergency services. He would later argue that he simply
hadn't known what the emergency service's number was, as he'd
never learned it upon moving back to South Africa, But
that seemed suspicious, as it wasn't like he was completely
new to the country, and even if that statement was true,
the fact that he had only reached his girlfriend's voicemail
(10:21):
and left a message didn't exactly suggest that he was
looking for urgent help, as if that wasn't enough Once
he eventually did find the number for emergency services three
hours later and called it. Why had he spoken with
such a nervous giggle over the phone as he told
the operator on the other end, quote, my family and
me were attacked by a guy with an ax. Had
(10:45):
he just been anxious and in the throes of grief
with that causing his words to sound odd given the circumstances.
Or was there more to the story than met the eye?
Those were the questions the authorities were soon asking, and
it was over the course of the investigation that or
their suspicious details began to come up first. Despite him
(11:05):
claiming that the murderer had broken into their house, probably
to try and rob them, there were no signs of
forced entry into the house. In fact, after an investigation
was carried out into the potential for a breach of
the property having taken place that morning, it was deemed
to be highly unlikely. After all, no windows had been smashed,
(11:26):
no locks had been broken, and no doors had been
forced in the family's home alarm system hadn't even gone off. Yes,
it was possible that someone could have gotten past the
security system without setting it off, and perhaps they could
have entered the home in a more discreet way, leaving
no evidence behind of how they'd broken in, But that
would have required an incredible amount of skill for a thief,
(11:48):
as the house was protected by a large electric fence
and numerous CCTV cameras, And to go to all that
effort only then to not steal anything, well, it just
didn't make sense. Rather, what made the most sense was
that there had been no thief in the house at all,
and that the person who carried out the murders had
been inside the entire time. Then, of course, there were
(12:10):
other details that didn't back up the intruder story, details
like the family dog, Sasha, making absolutely no noise that
might have been heard by the neighbors. As any dog
owner will tell you, if someone new walks into their territory,
then the animals are usually hyper aware and will let
it be known via barking or general agitated behavior. But
(12:32):
Sasha had done nothing of the sort on January twenty seventh,
lending even more credence to the idea that no break
in had actually occurred. Henry would try to explain that
away by claiming that Sasha was about as far away
from a guard dog as a canine could get and
was not one to bark, but that was contradicted by
information found that suggested the dog had been known to
(12:53):
get very excitable and alert whenever a new domestic worker
started at the house. Investigators were also at a loss
to explain why, if it was indeed a simple robbery
attempt gone wrong, the thief would show up at the
robbery with an axe. If the goal was to murder
the Van Berdaws, maybe that would have been the logical
weapon to carry, But nothing about the family's history, there
(13:16):
standing in the community, or the claims of the only
surviving member of the household back that up. All that
was left was the question of who would bring an
axe to a robbery, even in a country like South
Africa where crime was known to be a lot more violent,
and who would leave it there afterwards for police to find,
even in the event they were fleeing the scene as
(13:37):
quickly as possible. For that matter, why would they flee
it all and leave a witness still alive? Yes, Henry
argued that he'd been able to fight off the intruder,
but considering the intruder was wielding a deadly weapon which
had not only killed three of his family members but
also critically injured another, his claim raised alarm bells. Really,
(13:58):
if someone had gone that far and was that physically capable,
the idea that they would simply run away, leaving one
person virtually unharmed and able to tell the tale of
what had occurred seemed unlikely. Even if Henry had been
briefly able to break away from his grasp. Even the
specific injuries Henry had on his body didn't add up,
as they were so wildly different to those the rest
(14:20):
of the Van Berdas had to look at his wounds
when held up next to his families, it almost seemed
like he'd done them to himself. Understandably, it didn't take
long for suspicion to shift to the only other person
who could have possibly carried out the murders, Henry. That said,
it was not something the police were willing to charge
(14:40):
him with easily. No before they formally accused him of murder,
they wanted to make sure they had the full story.
Stray and all the evidence in place. That's why they
waited for Marley to recover enough so they could interview
her and learn more about what had happened that night. Unfortunately, though,
that was a lot easier said than done. That was
(15:01):
because while she was now out of intensive care and
was on the road to overall recovery, the trauma to
her brain left behind by the axe had removed any
memory she had of the incident, and not just that either,
it had removed much of her memory of her life
over the prior few years, to the point that she
was diagnosed with a case of retrograde amnesia, so she
(15:22):
was not able to offer up any more clarity about
what had happened at her home that evening. For safety purposes,
Henry and Marley were taken in by separate relatives and
kept apart during that time. While Henry was living with
his uncle, he would spend a lot of his time
in isolation, keeping himself away from the prying eyes of
those around him as much as possible, but that was
(15:44):
understandable considering many of them fully believed by them that
he was the one who had carried out the murders
of his father, mother, and brother, and the attempted murder
of his sister. One person in particular who was wary
of being in his company was Asha Lao, a domestic
worker who was employed at his uncle's estate at the time.
As she would later describe the young man when being interviewed, quote,
(16:07):
he generally kept to his room. He didn't come out
of there when there were guests either. Henry sometimes sat
on his own outside at the swimming pool, smoking those
strong cigarettes. He would also pour himself a drink at
the bar and take it to his room. I never
let him stand behind me. Later, he would usually drive
off on his own in a BMW and stay away
(16:29):
for long periods. But while the people around him might
have had strong suspicions, the fact of the matter was
that until the police could find the evidence they needed
to formally charge him with a crime, things were not
going to go any further, and that's why they remained
hard at work on the task over the next year
and a half. At one point, the authorities even looked
(16:51):
into rumors that Henry may have been diagnosed with a
brain tumor and that it may have been partially responsible
for the erratic and impulsive behavior that would lead him
killing his own family. In the end, though, any evidence
of a tumor in Henry's frontal lobe could not be evidenced.
Brain scans had been done on the young man at
one point, but there was nothing concrete to show that
(17:12):
something sinister had been found there. Rather, if there was
a tumor which had caused Henry to act the way
he did, it was kept under wraps by the family
very well. One thing that could be proven, however, was
that the blood found on Henry's clothes on the night
of the murder did indeed belong to his deceased family members.
Given his official version of the story didn't have him
(17:34):
getting directly involved when they were being killed, the blood
likely came from him moving and tampering with the bodies
after the fact, As court documents reveal, quote, it is
believed that after the commission of the crimes, the accused
tampered with the crime scene, inflicted injuries to his person,
and supplied false information to the police in order to
(17:55):
mislead police as to the true identity of the perpetrator.
Then they were getting closer to an official arrest. They
just needed to find that motive. That was something they
found when they learned the full depth of Henry's drug
issues and the effect it had been having on his
relationship with his family. As one source would tell the police,
(18:16):
things had gotten so bad within the van Berdah household
Martin and Teresa had actually threatened to cut their son
off financially. That felt like a solid enough motive, so
on June thirteenth, twenty sixteen, a full eighteen months after
the crimes had been committed, Henry van Berdah was finally
arrested and charged with the murders of his mother, his father,
(18:37):
and his older brother, as well as the attempted murder
of his younger sister. An additional charge of defeating or
obstructing the administration of justice was also added. When he
appeared at the Stellenbosch Magistrate Court the following day to
plead not guilty to all charges, people were understandably a
little concerned that bail was awarded, especially since it was
(18:59):
only one hundre hundred thousand South African rand that would
be in the four thousand to five thousand range of
US dollars, euros or British pounds. Then, at a pre
trial hearing held at Western Cape High Court in September
of twenty sixteen, the prosecution realized they didn't have all
the DNA evidence they needed to go forward, so they
(19:21):
requested that the trial date be postponed. Meanwhile, rather than
langlow and trying his best to get public sentiment on
his side, Henry was only getting himself into further trouble,
as after making bail, he returned to living with his
girlfriend Danielle. It was while staying with her that the
pair would get arrested on September sixth, after being found
(19:42):
in possession of cannabis. Sure that was incredibly minor when
in comparison to the other crimes Henry was being accused of,
but it just added to the sense that this was
someone who really didn't care about the consequences of his
actions and who was going to continue to cause problems
for as long as he was a free may That
would continue to be the general sense people had of
(20:04):
Henry by the time April fourth, twenty seventeen, came around
and his trial finally began at Western Cape High Court. There,
he continued to maintain his innocence by entering a not
guilty plea. So the prosecution set out to prove beyond
a reasonable doubt that he was lying. First, they started
by looking at the injuries to each family member on
(20:24):
the night of the crimes. According to the coroner, Martin
had suffered a deadly blow to the back of his head,
something that was in fitting with Henry's story other than that,
he did not have any defensive wounds on his person,
suggesting he'd been caught off guard when he was killed
and was not, in fact in the middle of a
struggle with an intruder. The prosecution argued that was evidence
(20:46):
that Henry was lying and trying to cover something up,
and while Therese and Rudy's injuries suggested they were killed
quickly after being taken by surprise, something that would somewhat
back up what the accused had claimed. The fact that
his injury, he seemed suspect to say the least, was
only a further mark against him. As the prosecution would
put it, Henry's wounds, being completely superficial and left in
(21:09):
a way that could have easily been done by himself,
only lended further credence to the idea that it was
him who had killed his family, not a masked intruder.
All the other members of the family had been struck
with an axe. In his case, however, he'd merely been
injured with a knife. Henry would continue to claim that
the lack of serious injuries on his body was as
(21:31):
a result of him fighting off the intruder and then
running him out of the house before he could do
any more damage. But that was something the prosecution found
incredibly hard to believe. In particular, the fact that the
blow that ultimately killed Martin was delivered to the back
of his head struck them as a huge red flag.
Why would someone who was trying to defend himself from
(21:52):
an axe wielding murderer turn his back on them in
the middle of a fight. Then, of course, there was
the DNA evidence, or lack thereof, which was discovered at
the scene. Despite forensics doing a full sweep of the
van Berdah home after arriving there on the morning of
the murders, no foreign DNA fingerprints or shoe prints could
(22:12):
be found anywhere on the property. That suggested that no
one had broken into the house that night, and that
the killer had to have been inside already. The defense
would point out that that wasn't necessarily proof of anything,
as the killer could have feasibly gotten away without leaving
any DNA behind, but it was still unlikely that that
had been what had happened. The Okham's razor approach to
(22:36):
solving the mystery would definitely suggest that no intruder was
there at all, so that would leave only one potential
culprit Henry. That was the argument the prosecution further pushed
when they went on to bring in blood spatter analysiss
who argue that the spatter from Martin, Teresa and Rudy's
blood on Henry's close suggested that he was either a
(22:57):
lot closer to them than he claimed he was at
the point they were being killed, or that he had
moved the bodies after the fact in order to make
their positioning better fit with the story he planned to
give the police. And that wasn't the only piece of
evidence related to the blood of the victims that seemed
to be damning for the defense. There was also the
fact that forensics had found traces of both Rudy and
(23:19):
Henry's blood in the shower. Obviously, that suggested one of
them had taken a shower after the killings happened, likely
in an attempt to clean themselves up. And get rid
of evidence, and given Rudy was already dead, it once
again left only one possible option. As to any other
explanation there might have been for blood being found in
(23:40):
the shower, Henry couldn't provide one when asked, just as
he couldn't provide an explanation as to why a thief
would break into a house and ignore the valuables that
were located downstairs, only to then go upstairs and engage
in a killing spray. Then the prosecution asked more questions
about the supposed fight Henry had with the intruder, and
(24:01):
the inconsistencies between his story and the evidence that was
left behind were undeniable. According to what Henry had told
police during the immediate aftermath of the murders, the mystery
intruder had come at him with an axe, initially which
the young man had been able to wrestle from him
before throwing it out of the way. Wasn't it odd
the prosecution claimed that Henry would throw away the axe
(24:24):
rather than use it to defend himself, especially as the
attacker then produced a knife. And wasn't it also odd that,
despite Henry claiming he'd fought the intruder off after being
stabbed in the chest and upper arm, at one point
falling down the stairs during the scuffle. The blood pattern
and deviation on his body when he was checked out
(24:44):
by doctors later that day suggested he had little to
no movements after his injuries occurred. Again, it was suspicious
and something that the accused could not explain, with him
only reasserting his claim that what he had told authorities
on the day of the murder was the truth. That
included the fact that he had passed out after calling
his girlfriend in the immediate aftermath, and when he was
(25:07):
asked once more why he hadn't called the emergency services instead,
he reiterated his previous statement that he couldn't remember the
emergency services number for South Africa as he'd spent time
living in Australia prior to that. That didn't match up
with the fact that the authorities discovered a piece of
paper attached to the front of the homes refrigerator that
(25:28):
included a list of various emergency services contact details. That
fridge was less than two meters or about six feet
away from the landline Henry used to eventually call for help.
To think he hadn't seen that in the moment felt
like a stretch. And even if his head had been
elsewhere and he hadn't noticed it at the time, to
think that he hadn't seen it at all during the
(25:49):
prior five months he'd been living there felt like a
near impossibility. Then, of course, there was the phone call itself.
It had already been noted by police during their investigation
that the calm and almost humorous tone Henry had taken
on when he was reporting that he needed help was odd,
to say the least, But that was not a smoking
gun in itself. As he would reassert at the trial,
(26:11):
people sometimes act strangely when they're in a state of
grief or shock, which is absolutely true. What was considered
strange was the audio log of the same call, where
Henry told the operator that his sister Marley was still
breathing and was even moving a little, though she was
bleeding badly. What he did not show any attempt at
trying to do on the call, however, was attempt to
(26:34):
stop her bleeding, something which would surely have been an
almost automatic reaction if he was trying to save her life.
On top of that, and no point did he attempt
to go get help from a neighbor or from the
estate security, a move which could have been the difference
between life or death as he waited for emergency services
to arrive on the scene. As to why he hadn't
(26:55):
done that again, Henry had no explanation other than to
say that he was panicking in the moment and not
thinking clearly. He explained that he had just woken up
again after falling unconscious for several hours, so he was
probably still in a bit of days. But Henry's claim
of passing out was supposedly from blood loss, and the
prosecution pointed out that all of his wounds were superficial
(27:18):
and would not have resulted in the amount of blood
loss to cause unconsciousness. The prosecution also pointed out that
falling unconscious as a result of a concussion or emotional
shock would only last a few minutes, not hours. The
defense stated that Henry had since been diagnosed with epilepsy,
and it was possible that he had suffered a seizure
(27:39):
brought on by severe stress, which could have lasted for
over two hours and could have accounted for the time
he was unresponsive. He would have also explained his calm
demeanor upon waking up, as his senses would have likely
been dulled temporarily after the attack. But even that was
something the prosecution had an answer to, as they argued
that Henry's epilepsy diagnosed had been given mere months before
(28:01):
the trial had begun three years after the murders, and
that diagnosis had heavily relied on the words of the
boy himself, not the assessment of a doctor. It was
a diagnosis that was fairly flimsy and not something that
could have been used to explain away such a huge
discrepancy in his testimony from three years prior, and even
(28:22):
if it could, it couldn't explain away so many other
nagging details that didn't add up, details like why the
family dog, Sasha, had remained silent during a supposed break in,
or why a neighbor who was living across from the
Van Brodas at the time of the murders told the
prosecution she remembered hearing a loud argument coming from the
Dissal's golf estate that evening. Henry tried to explain away
(28:46):
the neighbors claim by stating that he and his family
had been watching Star Trek two the wrath of Khan
on the evening of the killings, So maybe that was
the yelling they thought they had heard, but that also
felt like a flimsy excuse, and that wouldn't explain how
the supposed intruder had gotten past the pretty high tech
security at the Dissuls golf estate. They lived in, part
(29:08):
of an incredibly wealthy gated community, one that had CCTV
thermal cameras, electrified fences, and twenty four hour patrol all
set up. So if anyone had managed to make it
all the way to the Van Berdoff family house, at
least one of those measures should have picked them up.
But they didn't, and that only added to the increasing
(29:29):
pile of evidence that suggested that Henry had been lying
to everyone around him in the aftermath of the murders.
But even that wasn't the end of the evidence the
prosecution levied against him. At a certain point, they moved
on to the murder weapon itself, as they explained it.
When that weapon was later found by police, it had
(29:50):
Henry's fingerprints on it, and while that could be explained
away as having happened when the boy was wrestling the
acts away from the man, trying to kill him, It
could not explain the the other unidentifiable fingerprints on the handle,
something that wouldn't have been left by the supposed killer
if he was indeed wearing gloves as Henry had claimed.
(30:10):
Then there was the fact that both the acts and
the knife that was used to cut Henry had originated
inside the Van Bredah house. If the prosecution argued someone
was going to go to all the trouble of staging
a break in in a hugely secure, gated house, why
wouldn't they arm themselves ahead of time? Why would they
wait until they got there to look for a weapon?
(30:32):
When all the details were added up, it was definitely
painting an increasingly bad picture for Henry van Bredaugh's hopes
of being found not guilty. And then came something closer
to a smoking gun, The thing that seemed to prove
beyond any reasonable doubt that Henry had been lying to
the police, the discrepancy about how many intruders had actually
(30:53):
been there on the night in question. Basically back when
he'd give it his original statement to the police, the
accused had claimed that there had been one intruder in
his family home, the one he'd been able to fight off,
but now that he was on the stand, he instead
changed his story and argued that there had been two
masked men there that evening, as he claimed he'd told
(31:15):
the police that at the time, though no record of
that ever being said could be found. Really, it all
felt like he was just trying to confuse the matter
by throwing things back on the authorities, arguing that they
had messed up the investigation as they should have been
hunting two killers all along. That was supported when the
prosecutor produced the original statement which claimed there had been
(31:36):
only one intruder and it was signed by Henry van Bradhah.
It also seemed unlikely that he had fought off the
one supposed intruder, but now he had fought off two intruders. Bullshit.
Despite all that, though, there were two people who continued
to stand by Henry throughout the trial, regardless of the
eventual verdict. They were leant to Nell, the boy's aunt,
(31:59):
and of course yell Jans von Rensburg, his girlfriend. Each
of those women simply refused to accept that there was
any possibility Henry could have done what he is being
accused of doing, as even if he did have his issues,
there was nothing about him which suggested he could have
murdered his own family in cold blood. As Danielle would
state when interviewed by South Africa's You magazine not long
(32:22):
after her boyfriend's initial arrest, quote, anyone who spends a
day with him will realize he couldn't do such a thing.
I believe in his innocence one hundred percent. When he
talks about his family, he gets emotional, but he's doing well.
He's strong, really very strong. He'll often bring up his
family and talk about his brother, especially. He remembers only
(32:43):
the good. Unfortunately for them and for Henry, the judge
would not agree. On May twenty first, he found Henry
guilty on all charges. He said quote, you've displayed no remorse.
No compelling circumstances have been placed before us. On June
seventh of that same year, Henry van Bredah was sentenced
(33:04):
to three life terms in prison for the murder of
his father, mother, and brother, as well as an additional
fifteen years for the attempted murder of his sister in
a further twelve months for the obstruction of justice. He
filed appeals against his convictions, but they would all be rejected.
He will likely be in prison for the rest of
his life, and though it's only speculation, it seems that
(33:25):
he was simply after his parents' money. Whatever the truth,
one person who no longer wants anything to do with
the whole situation is Marley van Bredah, the only surviving
victim of the murders. Today, she's retreated from the public
spectacle that was the trial of her brother and has
done everything she can to move on with her life.
Sure as a result of her amnesia, she still can't
(33:47):
remember anything that happened on that faithful night, but based
on the fact she did not speak in her brother's
defense at his hearing and has made no public statement
in support of him in the years since, she likely
sees him as being guilty no matter what she thinks
of him, as everyone else should think of him as
a monster. If you're the victim of domestic abuse, please
(34:09):
reach out to someone for help. Please talk to your
local shelter, call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at one
eight hundred seven nine nine safe that's one eight hundred
seven nine nine seven two three three, or you can
go to the hotline dot org to chat with someone online.
If you're having feelings of harming yourself or someone else,
or even just need someone to talk to. Please contact
(34:31):
your local mental health facility call nine one one, or
call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline by simply dialing nine
eight eight in the United States. They're available twenty four
hours a day, seven days a week, and we'll talk
to you about any mental health issue you might be facing.
If you're a member of the LGBTQ plus community and
suffering from discrimination, depression, or are in need of any support,
(34:53):
please contact the lgbt National Hotline at one eight eight
eight eight four three four five six four, or go
to lgbthotline dot org. Thanks so much for letting me
tell you this story. If you're a fan of true crime,
you can subscribe to this show so you don't miss
an episode. My other show, Somewhere Sinister is no longer
getting new episodes, but you can check it out if
(35:15):
you like interesting stories from history that aren't necessarily true crime,
but true crime adjacent. It's available anywhere that you listen
to podcasts. You can also check out my personal vlog,
Giles with a Jay, which is sporadically updated with stuff
about my personal life, travel and music. It's available on YouTube.
If you'd like to support the show, check out our
(35:35):
merchandise at thisismonsters dot com. A link is in the description.
Thanks again, and be safe.
Henry van Berdah was in the bedroom of his family
home during the early hours of January twenty seventh, twenty fifteen,
when he heard a noise coming from the nearby bedroom
he shared with his brother Rudy. Curious as to who
else was awake at the time, he peered out of
the doorway into the bedroom and was shocked to see
a well built black mail shrouded by darkness and wearing
(00:22):
both gloves and a bolaklava, striking his sleeping sibling with
an axe. Panic began to set in for the young man,
and that was why he immediately shouted for his father, Martin,
who woke up and quickly came running to help his son. Unfortunately,
Martin van Berdah would not be able to stop the
mysterious figure who was attacking Rudy. The intruder would end
(00:44):
up overpowering the father and fatally striking him in the
head with the same axe as before. As that was happening,
Henry remained frozen in place in the bathroom, unable to
move out of terror over what he was seeing, and
that was where he remained as the intruder proceeded to
finish off not only Rudy, but also killed Teresa and Marley,
the mother and daughter of the household. In fact, Henry
(01:07):
didn't build up the courage to get involved at all
until the man then attacked him. Thankfully, though, he was
able to fight the masked figure off, even if he
did get injured in the process. He was then able
to chase him away, all before calling his girlfriend at
around four forty two am to tell her that something
terrible had occurred and that he needed help. At least,
(01:29):
that was the story Henry would initially tell authorities when
they later showed up at the scene. In truth, though,
as it would eventually be revealed, no such mystery figure
had existed. No. This had all instead been a poorly
thought out way to cover up the fact that he
was the one who had attacked all four members of
his family with an axe in one of the most
brutal crimes imaginable. This is monsters. Before we begin, I
(02:20):
just want to make sure you know that my other show,
Sinister is back up and there are three episodes a week.
They're dark stories from history, and if you like this show,
you'll probably like that one. Give it a shot. There
are links in the description. Thanks the van Berdah family
seemed like a pretty normal Christian household as far as
(02:40):
the outside world could tell, or at least as normal
as a family who had enough money to own the
Dezel's golf estate and Stellenbosch, South Africa could be. After all,
they were successful, well liked within their community and didn't
seem to have any obvious dark secrets that were being
hidden away, with the exception of their youngest son, hen
that was. But even then, while Henry's apparent drug abuse
(03:04):
was somewhat known about by the locals, it wasn't like
it made him a complete social pariah amongst his community,
at least not initially. If anything, it just gave him
the label of being a bit of a black sheep,
and people assumed he would eventually straighten himself out. It
wasn't as if his father, Martin wasn't able to use
his considerable money and influence as the managing director of
(03:25):
his local branch of Engel and Vulgars, a German real
estate company, to get him out of a jam whenever
those occurred, and it wasn't like his mother Teresa wasn't
always there to try to bring him back down to
earth too. Even his siblings, twenty two year old Rudy
two years his senior and sixteen year old Marley four
years his junior, always wanted the best for their brother.
(03:47):
But even if that was the case, it wasn't always
possible to give Henry the best as sometimes the sad
reality is that an addict can simply be their own
worst enemy, and it appears that was the case for
the young man once he got to the point of
reaching his late teens, his drug use got so bad
that once he graduated school and briefly moved over to
(04:07):
Australia with his family here in the nickname of Druggie.
One close acquaintance of the Van Berdaff family later claimed
that those issues had gotten Henry kicked out of university
and that that had been considered a huge black eye
as far as his parents were concerned. Of course, that
wasn't the story the family presented at the time, though
(04:28):
No the way they framed it, Henry had simply chosen
to drop out of his course and return home to
South Africa, with his reasons for that being vague. While
many around the Van Berdahs were at least to some
degree aware about the young man's issues, the family still
felt the need to keep up appearances. That said, once
things were behind closed doors, arguments would regularly start with them,
(04:52):
almost always centering around how Henry was throwing his life
away and how his parents could only do so much
to get him back on track. The thing they were
particularly struggling with after they moved back to South Africa
was getting him into another good school. But despite the
initial difficulties in doing so, Henry eventually managed to get
enrolled at Stellenbosch University. Not long after he arrived there,
(05:16):
his issues would become apparent all over again as his
drug use once more took center stage ahead of his studies.
After a while, it even started to take a physical
toll on him, as those around the boy couldn't help
but notice how thin and pallid looking he was, growing
like a man who was doing everything in his power
to self destruct right in front of the world. One
(05:37):
neighbor named Robert Minies would later encapsulate the vibe Henry
was giving off during that period when he said of
the boy quote what struck me was the way he
always looked as if he wasn't quite all there, in
a trance, almost as if he wanted to say, go on,
hit me, that's right. By then, what had once been
a mere case of a black sheep amongst a well
(05:59):
to do family was becoming more and more of a
concern as people started to become scared of him. And
that wasn't the only example of Henry van Bredah causing
issues amongst the local community. There was also the time
where a domestic worker at his family home named Margaret
Delport was the target of a barrage of obscene remarks
from the young man while he was under the influence.
(06:21):
Those remarks would be mimicked a year later, when, about
two weeks prior to the murders taking place, he and
a couple of similarly strung out friends created a scene
at a shopping center just outside of Stellenbosch by loudly
singing and dancing in front of a crowd of shoppers,
all while Henry exposed his genitals and shouted at nearby women,
telling them all the sword things he wanted to do
(06:44):
to them. Obviously, that kind of behavior couldn't carry on
unchecked forever, and the family knew that by that point
they'd even take into talking the problem over with friends
rather than trying to hide it anymore for the sake
of keeping up appearances. As one friend of the household
later put it, quote, Teresa was sometimes so exhausted from
(07:05):
sitting up all night with Henry that his dad had
to take the children to school in her place. Martin
knew his younger son was taking drugs. At some point
he threatened to cut off his allowance. He had high
expectations of his children. At one stage, he was very
concerned when he found Dogga in Henry's possession. Of course, Dogga,
(07:27):
a popular strain of cannabis in South Africa, was far
from the worst thing Henry was putting into his body
by then, but with his father not being as educated
on drugs, one substance seemed to be as bad as
the next as far as he was concerned. So in
twenty fourteen, after finally reaching his breaking point, he demanded
that his son go to a private rehabilitation center and
(07:49):
mental health treatment facility in Loevenstein, Belleville, where he was
hoped he would deal with all of his issues in
one fell swoop, getting him clean of drugs, all while
sorting out any underlying emotional issues he was suffering from.
But If that stay did anything to quell Henry's issues,
it obviously didn't stick, as once he was back home again,
he quickly returned to his old ways. That would all
(08:12):
lead to the unfortunate events of January twenty seventh, twenty fifteen,
where clearly something critical broke down within the young man
and caused him to commit one of the worst crimes imaginable.
Henry had called emergency services, but it was eventually revealed
that it was three hours after the murders had taken place.
Henry would claim that the delay was due to him
(08:35):
losing consciousness after the attack. That claim is contradicted by
the fact that Henry called his girlfriend directly after the murders.
When he finally did call the authorities, they rushed to
the scene. What they found upon setting foot on the
property was one of the more gruesome scenes which had
ever taken place in South Africa, as Martin, Teresa, and
(08:56):
Rudy van Berdah were all dead, butchered with an axe.
As for Marley, the youngest of the household, she had
also been savagely attacked, though somehow had managed to cling
to life despite suffering from the same severe head trauma
which had killed three other members of her family, she
had not succumbed to death herself. She was immediately rushed
(09:18):
to a nearby hospital, where it was hoped she could
be saved. Then there was Henry, the only member of
the family who had escaped relatively unharmed. Sure, he did
have multiple knife wounds on his body, something which was
apparent to see as soon as the cops arrived and
found him sitting outside on the doorstep close bloody, but
aside from that, he looked physically fine, even if he
(09:40):
was clearly in a lot of emotional distress. He claimed
that he had been able to fight the intruder off
before they could do any real harm, and for the moment,
the authorities accepted that pretty quickly, though, some problems with
the official story started being noticed. Why was it that
Henry had chosen to call his girlfriend fee before calling
(10:01):
the emergency services. He would later argue that he simply
hadn't known what the emergency service's number was, as he'd
never learned it upon moving back to South Africa, But
that seemed suspicious, as it wasn't like he was completely
new to the country, and even if that statement was true,
the fact that he had only reached his girlfriend's voicemail
(10:21):
and left a message didn't exactly suggest that he was
looking for urgent help, as if that wasn't enough Once
he eventually did find the number for emergency services three
hours later and called it. Why had he spoken with
such a nervous giggle over the phone as he told
the operator on the other end, quote, my family and
me were attacked by a guy with an ax. Had
(10:45):
he just been anxious and in the throes of grief
with that causing his words to sound odd given the circumstances.
Or was there more to the story than met the eye?
Those were the questions the authorities were soon asking, and
it was over the course of the investigation that or
their suspicious details began to come up first. Despite him
(11:05):
claiming that the murderer had broken into their house, probably
to try and rob them, there were no signs of
forced entry into the house. In fact, after an investigation
was carried out into the potential for a breach of
the property having taken place that morning, it was deemed
to be highly unlikely. After all, no windows had been smashed,
(11:26):
no locks had been broken, and no doors had been
forced in the family's home alarm system hadn't even gone off. Yes,
it was possible that someone could have gotten past the
security system without setting it off, and perhaps they could
have entered the home in a more discreet way, leaving
no evidence behind of how they'd broken in, But that
would have required an incredible amount of skill for a thief,
(11:48):
as the house was protected by a large electric fence
and numerous CCTV cameras, And to go to all that
effort only then to not steal anything, well, it just
didn't make sense. Rather, what made the most sense was
that there had been no thief in the house at all,
and that the person who carried out the murders had
been inside the entire time. Then, of course, there were
(12:10):
other details that didn't back up the intruder story, details
like the family dog, Sasha, making absolutely no noise that
might have been heard by the neighbors. As any dog
owner will tell you, if someone new walks into their territory,
then the animals are usually hyper aware and will let
it be known via barking or general agitated behavior. But
(12:32):
Sasha had done nothing of the sort on January twenty seventh,
lending even more credence to the idea that no break
in had actually occurred. Henry would try to explain that
away by claiming that Sasha was about as far away
from a guard dog as a canine could get and
was not one to bark, but that was contradicted by
information found that suggested the dog had been known to
(12:53):
get very excitable and alert whenever a new domestic worker
started at the house. Investigators were also at a loss
to explain why, if it was indeed a simple robbery
attempt gone wrong, the thief would show up at the
robbery with an axe. If the goal was to murder
the Van Berdaws, maybe that would have been the logical
weapon to carry, But nothing about the family's history, there
(13:16):
standing in the community, or the claims of the only
surviving member of the household back that up. All that
was left was the question of who would bring an
axe to a robbery, even in a country like South
Africa where crime was known to be a lot more violent,
and who would leave it there afterwards for police to find,
even in the event they were fleeing the scene as
(13:37):
quickly as possible. For that matter, why would they flee
it all and leave a witness still alive? Yes, Henry
argued that he'd been able to fight off the intruder,
but considering the intruder was wielding a deadly weapon which
had not only killed three of his family members but
also critically injured another, his claim raised alarm bells. Really,
(13:58):
if someone had gone that far and was that physically capable,
the idea that they would simply run away, leaving one
person virtually unharmed and able to tell the tale of
what had occurred seemed unlikely. Even if Henry had been
briefly able to break away from his grasp. Even the
specific injuries Henry had on his body didn't add up,
as they were so wildly different to those the rest
(14:20):
of the Van Berdas had to look at his wounds
when held up next to his families, it almost seemed
like he'd done them to himself. Understandably, it didn't take
long for suspicion to shift to the only other person
who could have possibly carried out the murders, Henry. That said,
it was not something the police were willing to charge
(14:40):
him with easily. No before they formally accused him of murder,
they wanted to make sure they had the full story.
Stray and all the evidence in place. That's why they
waited for Marley to recover enough so they could interview
her and learn more about what had happened that night. Unfortunately, though,
that was a lot easier said than done. That was
(15:01):
because while she was now out of intensive care and
was on the road to overall recovery, the trauma to
her brain left behind by the axe had removed any
memory she had of the incident, and not just that either,
it had removed much of her memory of her life
over the prior few years, to the point that she
was diagnosed with a case of retrograde amnesia, so she
(15:22):
was not able to offer up any more clarity about
what had happened at her home that evening. For safety purposes,
Henry and Marley were taken in by separate relatives and
kept apart during that time. While Henry was living with
his uncle, he would spend a lot of his time
in isolation, keeping himself away from the prying eyes of
those around him as much as possible, but that was
(15:44):
understandable considering many of them fully believed by them that
he was the one who had carried out the murders
of his father, mother, and brother, and the attempted murder
of his sister. One person in particular who was wary
of being in his company was Asha Lao, a domestic
worker who was employed at his uncle's estate at the time.
As she would later describe the young man when being interviewed, quote,
(16:07):
he generally kept to his room. He didn't come out
of there when there were guests either. Henry sometimes sat
on his own outside at the swimming pool, smoking those
strong cigarettes. He would also pour himself a drink at
the bar and take it to his room. I never
let him stand behind me. Later, he would usually drive
off on his own in a BMW and stay away
(16:29):
for long periods. But while the people around him might
have had strong suspicions, the fact of the matter was
that until the police could find the evidence they needed
to formally charge him with a crime, things were not
going to go any further, and that's why they remained
hard at work on the task over the next year
and a half. At one point, the authorities even looked
(16:51):
into rumors that Henry may have been diagnosed with a
brain tumor and that it may have been partially responsible
for the erratic and impulsive behavior that would lead him
killing his own family. In the end, though, any evidence
of a tumor in Henry's frontal lobe could not be evidenced.
Brain scans had been done on the young man at
one point, but there was nothing concrete to show that
(17:12):
something sinister had been found there. Rather, if there was
a tumor which had caused Henry to act the way
he did, it was kept under wraps by the family
very well. One thing that could be proven, however, was
that the blood found on Henry's clothes on the night
of the murder did indeed belong to his deceased family members.
Given his official version of the story didn't have him
(17:34):
getting directly involved when they were being killed, the blood
likely came from him moving and tampering with the bodies
after the fact, As court documents reveal, quote, it is
believed that after the commission of the crimes, the accused
tampered with the crime scene, inflicted injuries to his person,
and supplied false information to the police in order to
(17:55):
mislead police as to the true identity of the perpetrator.
Then they were getting closer to an official arrest. They
just needed to find that motive. That was something they
found when they learned the full depth of Henry's drug
issues and the effect it had been having on his
relationship with his family. As one source would tell the police,
(18:16):
things had gotten so bad within the van Berdah household
Martin and Teresa had actually threatened to cut their son
off financially. That felt like a solid enough motive, so
on June thirteenth, twenty sixteen, a full eighteen months after
the crimes had been committed, Henry van Berdah was finally
arrested and charged with the murders of his mother, his father,
(18:37):
and his older brother, as well as the attempted murder
of his younger sister. An additional charge of defeating or
obstructing the administration of justice was also added. When he
appeared at the Stellenbosch Magistrate Court the following day to
plead not guilty to all charges, people were understandably a
little concerned that bail was awarded, especially since it was
(18:59):
only one hundre hundred thousand South African rand that would
be in the four thousand to five thousand range of
US dollars, euros or British pounds. Then, at a pre
trial hearing held at Western Cape High Court in September
of twenty sixteen, the prosecution realized they didn't have all
the DNA evidence they needed to go forward, so they
(19:21):
requested that the trial date be postponed. Meanwhile, rather than
langlow and trying his best to get public sentiment on
his side, Henry was only getting himself into further trouble,
as after making bail, he returned to living with his
girlfriend Danielle. It was while staying with her that the
pair would get arrested on September sixth, after being found
(19:42):
in possession of cannabis. Sure that was incredibly minor when
in comparison to the other crimes Henry was being accused of,
but it just added to the sense that this was
someone who really didn't care about the consequences of his
actions and who was going to continue to cause problems
for as long as he was a free may That
would continue to be the general sense people had of
(20:04):
Henry by the time April fourth, twenty seventeen, came around
and his trial finally began at Western Cape High Court. There,
he continued to maintain his innocence by entering a not
guilty plea. So the prosecution set out to prove beyond
a reasonable doubt that he was lying. First, they started
by looking at the injuries to each family member on
(20:24):
the night of the crimes. According to the coroner, Martin
had suffered a deadly blow to the back of his head,
something that was in fitting with Henry's story other than that,
he did not have any defensive wounds on his person,
suggesting he'd been caught off guard when he was killed
and was not, in fact in the middle of a
struggle with an intruder. The prosecution argued that was evidence
(20:46):
that Henry was lying and trying to cover something up,
and while Therese and Rudy's injuries suggested they were killed
quickly after being taken by surprise, something that would somewhat
back up what the accused had claimed. The fact that
his injury, he seemed suspect to say the least, was
only a further mark against him. As the prosecution would
put it, Henry's wounds, being completely superficial and left in
(21:09):
a way that could have easily been done by himself,
only lended further credence to the idea that it was
him who had killed his family, not a masked intruder.
All the other members of the family had been struck
with an axe. In his case, however, he'd merely been
injured with a knife. Henry would continue to claim that
the lack of serious injuries on his body was as
(21:31):
a result of him fighting off the intruder and then
running him out of the house before he could do
any more damage. But that was something the prosecution found
incredibly hard to believe. In particular, the fact that the
blow that ultimately killed Martin was delivered to the back
of his head struck them as a huge red flag.
Why would someone who was trying to defend himself from
(21:52):
an axe wielding murderer turn his back on them in
the middle of a fight. Then, of course, there was
the DNA evidence, or lack thereof, which was discovered at
the scene. Despite forensics doing a full sweep of the
van Berdah home after arriving there on the morning of
the murders, no foreign DNA fingerprints or shoe prints could
(22:12):
be found anywhere on the property. That suggested that no
one had broken into the house that night, and that
the killer had to have been inside already. The defense
would point out that that wasn't necessarily proof of anything,
as the killer could have feasibly gotten away without leaving
any DNA behind, but it was still unlikely that that
had been what had happened. The Okham's razor approach to
(22:36):
solving the mystery would definitely suggest that no intruder was
there at all, so that would leave only one potential
culprit Henry. That was the argument the prosecution further pushed
when they went on to bring in blood spatter analysiss
who argue that the spatter from Martin, Teresa and Rudy's
blood on Henry's close suggested that he was either a
(22:57):
lot closer to them than he claimed he was at
the point they were being killed, or that he had
moved the bodies after the fact in order to make
their positioning better fit with the story he planned to
give the police. And that wasn't the only piece of
evidence related to the blood of the victims that seemed
to be damning for the defense. There was also the
fact that forensics had found traces of both Rudy and
(23:19):
Henry's blood in the shower. Obviously, that suggested one of
them had taken a shower after the killings happened, likely
in an attempt to clean themselves up. And get rid
of evidence, and given Rudy was already dead, it once
again left only one possible option. As to any other
explanation there might have been for blood being found in
(23:40):
the shower, Henry couldn't provide one when asked, just as
he couldn't provide an explanation as to why a thief
would break into a house and ignore the valuables that
were located downstairs, only to then go upstairs and engage
in a killing spray. Then the prosecution asked more questions
about the supposed fight Henry had with the intruder, and
(24:01):
the inconsistencies between his story and the evidence that was
left behind were undeniable. According to what Henry had told
police during the immediate aftermath of the murders, the mystery
intruder had come at him with an axe, initially which
the young man had been able to wrestle from him
before throwing it out of the way. Wasn't it odd
the prosecution claimed that Henry would throw away the axe
(24:24):
rather than use it to defend himself, especially as the
attacker then produced a knife. And wasn't it also odd that,
despite Henry claiming he'd fought the intruder off after being
stabbed in the chest and upper arm, at one point
falling down the stairs during the scuffle. The blood pattern
and deviation on his body when he was checked out
(24:44):
by doctors later that day suggested he had little to
no movements after his injuries occurred. Again, it was suspicious
and something that the accused could not explain, with him
only reasserting his claim that what he had told authorities
on the day of the murder was the truth. That
included the fact that he had passed out after calling
his girlfriend in the immediate aftermath, and when he was
(25:07):
asked once more why he hadn't called the emergency services instead,
he reiterated his previous statement that he couldn't remember the
emergency services number for South Africa as he'd spent time
living in Australia prior to that. That didn't match up
with the fact that the authorities discovered a piece of
paper attached to the front of the homes refrigerator that
(25:28):
included a list of various emergency services contact details. That
fridge was less than two meters or about six feet
away from the landline Henry used to eventually call for help.
To think he hadn't seen that in the moment felt
like a stretch. And even if his head had been
elsewhere and he hadn't noticed it at the time, to
think that he hadn't seen it at all during the
(25:49):
prior five months he'd been living there felt like a
near impossibility. Then, of course, there was the phone call itself.
It had already been noted by police during their investigation
that the calm and almost humorous tone Henry had taken
on when he was reporting that he needed help was odd,
to say the least, But that was not a smoking
gun in itself. As he would reassert at the trial,
(26:11):
people sometimes act strangely when they're in a state of
grief or shock, which is absolutely true. What was considered
strange was the audio log of the same call, where
Henry told the operator that his sister Marley was still
breathing and was even moving a little, though she was
bleeding badly. What he did not show any attempt at
trying to do on the call, however, was attempt to
(26:34):
stop her bleeding, something which would surely have been an
almost automatic reaction if he was trying to save her life.
On top of that, and no point did he attempt
to go get help from a neighbor or from the
estate security, a move which could have been the difference
between life or death as he waited for emergency services
to arrive on the scene. As to why he hadn't
(26:55):
done that again, Henry had no explanation other than to
say that he was panicking in the moment and not
thinking clearly. He explained that he had just woken up
again after falling unconscious for several hours, so he was
probably still in a bit of days. But Henry's claim
of passing out was supposedly from blood loss, and the
prosecution pointed out that all of his wounds were superficial
(27:18):
and would not have resulted in the amount of blood
loss to cause unconsciousness. The prosecution also pointed out that
falling unconscious as a result of a concussion or emotional
shock would only last a few minutes, not hours. The
defense stated that Henry had since been diagnosed with epilepsy,
and it was possible that he had suffered a seizure
(27:39):
brought on by severe stress, which could have lasted for
over two hours and could have accounted for the time
he was unresponsive. He would have also explained his calm
demeanor upon waking up, as his senses would have likely
been dulled temporarily after the attack. But even that was
something the prosecution had an answer to, as they argued
that Henry's epilepsy diagnosed had been given mere months before
(28:01):
the trial had begun three years after the murders, and
that diagnosis had heavily relied on the words of the
boy himself, not the assessment of a doctor. It was
a diagnosis that was fairly flimsy and not something that
could have been used to explain away such a huge
discrepancy in his testimony from three years prior, and even
(28:22):
if it could, it couldn't explain away so many other
nagging details that didn't add up, details like why the
family dog, Sasha, had remained silent during a supposed break in,
or why a neighbor who was living across from the
Van Brodas at the time of the murders told the
prosecution she remembered hearing a loud argument coming from the
Dissal's golf estate that evening. Henry tried to explain away
(28:46):
the neighbors claim by stating that he and his family
had been watching Star Trek two the wrath of Khan
on the evening of the killings, So maybe that was
the yelling they thought they had heard, but that also
felt like a flimsy excuse, and that wouldn't explain how
the supposed intruder had gotten past the pretty high tech
security at the Dissuls golf estate. They lived in, part
(29:08):
of an incredibly wealthy gated community, one that had CCTV
thermal cameras, electrified fences, and twenty four hour patrol all
set up. So if anyone had managed to make it
all the way to the Van Berdoff family house, at
least one of those measures should have picked them up.
But they didn't, and that only added to the increasing
(29:29):
pile of evidence that suggested that Henry had been lying
to everyone around him in the aftermath of the murders.
But even that wasn't the end of the evidence the
prosecution levied against him. At a certain point, they moved
on to the murder weapon itself, as they explained it.
When that weapon was later found by police, it had
(29:50):
Henry's fingerprints on it, and while that could be explained
away as having happened when the boy was wrestling the
acts away from the man, trying to kill him, It
could not explain the the other unidentifiable fingerprints on the handle,
something that wouldn't have been left by the supposed killer
if he was indeed wearing gloves as Henry had claimed.
(30:10):
Then there was the fact that both the acts and
the knife that was used to cut Henry had originated
inside the Van Bredah house. If the prosecution argued someone
was going to go to all the trouble of staging
a break in in a hugely secure, gated house, why
wouldn't they arm themselves ahead of time? Why would they
wait until they got there to look for a weapon?
(30:32):
When all the details were added up, it was definitely
painting an increasingly bad picture for Henry van Bredaugh's hopes
of being found not guilty. And then came something closer
to a smoking gun, The thing that seemed to prove
beyond any reasonable doubt that Henry had been lying to
the police, the discrepancy about how many intruders had actually
(30:53):
been there on the night in question. Basically back when
he'd give it his original statement to the police, the
accused had claimed that there had been one intruder in
his family home, the one he'd been able to fight off,
but now that he was on the stand, he instead
changed his story and argued that there had been two
masked men there that evening, as he claimed he'd told
(31:15):
the police that at the time, though no record of
that ever being said could be found. Really, it all
felt like he was just trying to confuse the matter
by throwing things back on the authorities, arguing that they
had messed up the investigation as they should have been
hunting two killers all along. That was supported when the
prosecutor produced the original statement which claimed there had been
(31:36):
only one intruder and it was signed by Henry van Bradhah.
It also seemed unlikely that he had fought off the
one supposed intruder, but now he had fought off two intruders. Bullshit.
Despite all that, though, there were two people who continued
to stand by Henry throughout the trial, regardless of the
eventual verdict. They were leant to Nell, the boy's aunt,
(31:59):
and of course yell Jans von Rensburg, his girlfriend. Each
of those women simply refused to accept that there was
any possibility Henry could have done what he is being
accused of doing, as even if he did have his issues,
there was nothing about him which suggested he could have
murdered his own family in cold blood. As Danielle would
state when interviewed by South Africa's You magazine not long
(32:22):
after her boyfriend's initial arrest, quote, anyone who spends a
day with him will realize he couldn't do such a thing.
I believe in his innocence one hundred percent. When he
talks about his family, he gets emotional, but he's doing well.
He's strong, really very strong. He'll often bring up his
family and talk about his brother, especially. He remembers only
(32:43):
the good. Unfortunately for them and for Henry, the judge
would not agree. On May twenty first, he found Henry
guilty on all charges. He said quote, you've displayed no remorse.
No compelling circumstances have been placed before us. On June
seventh of that same year, Henry van Bredah was sentenced
(33:04):
to three life terms in prison for the murder of
his father, mother, and brother, as well as an additional
fifteen years for the attempted murder of his sister in
a further twelve months for the obstruction of justice. He
filed appeals against his convictions, but they would all be rejected.
He will likely be in prison for the rest of
his life, and though it's only speculation, it seems that
(33:25):
he was simply after his parents' money. Whatever the truth,
one person who no longer wants anything to do with
the whole situation is Marley van Bredah, the only surviving
victim of the murders. Today, she's retreated from the public
spectacle that was the trial of her brother and has
done everything she can to move on with her life.
Sure as a result of her amnesia, she still can't
(33:47):
remember anything that happened on that faithful night, but based
on the fact she did not speak in her brother's
defense at his hearing and has made no public statement
in support of him in the years since, she likely
sees him as being guilty no matter what she thinks
of him, as everyone else should think of him as
a monster. If you're the victim of domestic abuse, please
(34:09):
reach out to someone for help. Please talk to your
local shelter, call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at one
eight hundred seven nine nine safe that's one eight hundred
seven nine nine seven two three three, or you can
go to the hotline dot org to chat with someone online.
If you're having feelings of harming yourself or someone else,
or even just need someone to talk to. Please contact
(34:31):
your local mental health facility call nine one one, or
call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline by simply dialing nine
eight eight in the United States. They're available twenty four
hours a day, seven days a week, and we'll talk
to you about any mental health issue you might be facing.
If you're a member of the LGBTQ plus community and
suffering from discrimination, depression, or are in need of any support,
(34:53):
please contact the lgbt National Hotline at one eight eight
eight eight four three four five six four, or go
to lgbthotline dot org. Thanks so much for letting me
tell you this story. If you're a fan of true crime,
you can subscribe to this show so you don't miss
an episode. My other show, Somewhere Sinister is no longer
getting new episodes, but you can check it out if
(35:15):
you like interesting stories from history that aren't necessarily true crime,
but true crime adjacent. It's available anywhere that you listen
to podcasts. You can also check out my personal vlog,
Giles with a Jay, which is sporadically updated with stuff
about my personal life, travel and music. It's available on YouTube.
If you'd like to support the show, check out our
(35:35):
merchandise at thisismonsters dot com. A link is in the description.
Thanks again, and be safe.
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