Young Axe Maniac annihilates own family!

By Omoseye Bolaji

One of the inevitable tragedies of this world is how bad news, terrible news, not only travels fast with gusto, but is given a lot of primacy across the board. Hence daily, even hourly around the globe horrific, disturbing stories are churned out by the mass media; of the in-your-face variety really.

This can be complemented by the hoary saying that “bad news sells,” and that’s the way it is; including atrocities committed around the world which has now assumed a horrendous visual tinge with the modern internet redolent with ghastly events like beheadings, torture, blood and gore.

In South Africa there is no running away from the fact that a lot of crime, violence, including murders, take place regularly. The media latches onto such stories with transcendent relish, as one would expect. But despite the fact that one has got used to such scenarios, it was still a terrible shock when the news broke here in South Africa that a 14 year old had hacked many members of his own family to death! 

The facts are as follows:

The South African police arrested a 14 year old boy for hacking to death three family members with an axe after two siblings escaped and called for help. Initially it was reported that four family members were killed, but apparently, the grandmother somehow survived the horrific attack (but four deaths are bad enough!). 

The 14 year-old was arrested shortly after the grisly murder of his mother, grandmother, brother and baby sister "It's alleged that he used an axe and then attacked them while they were sleeping," police confirmed. The boy's eight-year-old and nine-year-old sisters ran away during the killings at the Etwatwa informal settlement east of Johannesburg. "The sisters informed the neighbours what was happening at the house and in the mean time the boy ran away," 

The Police would later track down the teen by midday. The mother, 42, was found dead in the corrugated iron-shack the family lives in, while the three-month-old sister was found dead in a nearby field. The brother, 7, died in hospital. Police searched for the murder weapon. The boy would later appear in the Benoni Magistrates court.

As one would expect, the society reeled with the news, starting with the immediate neighbours of the pertinent family who were thrown into consternation. People ran hither and thither as the news broke and the police soon zeroed in on proceedings.

Why would a boy of 14 do such a horrific thing? Speculation still continues here; with a medley of theories put forward; including the possibility of the boy being on drugs, dabbling in Satanism , or his just being plain unhinged So how come the patent signs were not obvious earlier; or maybe they were?

I was at a seminar where this incident was inter alia touched upon; with a Black female psychologist being queried as to why such an incident could not be nipped in the bud. She explained that in the ‘townships’ even if there was an initial suspicion of a particular individual being mentally disturbed, it would be unseemly for ‘outsiders’, including Black professionals just to wade in and shove their oar in, as it were.

Isn’t this a familiar scenario across Africa these days? Are we still our brother’s keeper?

It is also clear that the youth these days are very much disturbed with the litany of material things, pursuits tantalising their lives. Put very simplistically, a very young lady wants the best things in life, including smart phones, clothes and the like; whilst young boys are under pressure to show that they are “strong and comfortable’ enough to provide the good things of life for their very young female peers (girlfriends) Is it any wonder that more and more of them are going off at a tangent, or becoming more and more bizarre?

Meanwhile experts ponder the depressing fact that South Africa has one of the highest murder rates outside war zones. Just under 16,000 people were killed between 2011 and 2012, according to official statistics…