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'Don't, dad, they're too many'
04/07/2007 22:47  - (SA)  

Virginia Keppler, Beeld

Pretoria - A grandfather from Brackenfell in the Cape who went to Pretoria especially for his granddaughter's christening has become just another statistic after being gunned down in cold blood by four armed robbers on Tuesday night.

Albertus Taljaard, 63, was shot dead in full view of his son, Derick, 30, at the Wilds, "a security complex within a security complex", east of Pretoria.

His wife Marietjie, 56, their daughter-in-law, Alda, 31, and their grandchildren three-year-old Xander, and Anlia, four months old, were at home during the attack.

Little Anlia was to have been christened on Sunday, but the service has been postponed for her grandfather's funeral.

Derick was in tears as he recounted the anxious moments before the robbers fled with two laptop computers.

Alda and the children were in the main bedroom when the robbers struck.

"Our domestic worker had walked halfway home with a friend. When she returned, the men attacked her in her room outside and took the keys to our back door.

Started tackling the robbers

Derick said: "I saw the men through the dining room windows and shouted at them to go away. The next moment, one of them took out a firearm and pointed it at me.

He dived under a table and broke a small bone in his left shoulder in the process.

Derick ran up the stairs just as his father came down to investigate.

"We went down together. My father pushed me into the study and started tackling the robbers.

"I shouted 'Don't, dad, they're too many for us'. Then one took out his firearm and shot my father in the stomach."

Derick ran to the main bedroom and shut the door.

"We prayed to the Lord to help us, and to help my father."

Alda phoned the emergency number 112 on her cellphone, but "the voice on the other side said I was shouting at her and put the phone down".

She phoned her mother, Alta Pieters, who lives in the same complex. Pieters said she also tried the emergency number again, with no success.

The police emergency number (10111) just rang.

Alta said police arrived an hour later.

Pieters said: "We must leave this country. We can't sit here and wait to be killed."

'My best friend is gone'

Derick said: "My mother has been badly affected. She keeps on saying 'My best friend is gone',"

"Xander keeps on asking : 'Where's my grandpa, when's he coming home from the hospital?' "

"Pappa, what happened?" Xander asked as he began to cry.