An Eastridge mother is satisfied that her son’s killers got at least 30 years imprisonment, even though she had wanted them to serve life sentences.
Last month the Cape High Court found members of the Firm Boys gang Tyrique Hendricks and Keano Taylor guilty for the murder of Ivor Hess, 41, in Daphne Crescent, Eastridge, on May 22, 2020; and sentenced them on Thursday December 7, along with four others of the same gang, to 30 years imprisonment for murder, attempted murder, contravening the Prevention of Organised Crime Act and the Firearms Control Act related to a 2019 murder.
Roswell Diedericks and Yushree Daniels were found guilty of murdering Lorenzo Baatjies, from Westridge, on October 20 2019, while Zaydine Samuels was acquitted on all charges and Lamour Nel died before he could plead to the charges.
Mr Hess’s mother, Rosaline Baatjies, 63, said the body of her son was riddled with 22 bullets just outside their door.
Hendricks was the one who shot Mr Hess.
Ms Baatjies said a year before she spotted he had a tattoo on his leg, which she burned with an iron. “I was very disappointed. He was my eldest son. He matriculated. Things went wrong in his life and he turned to drugs,” she said.
Ms Baatjies attended court proceedings and said she was grateful to the witnesses who stuck to their guns and testified during the trial.
“I got to see justice. There are lots of mothers in Mitchell’s Plain waiting and looking for justice. I got justice.”
Ms Baatjies told the Plainsman that people still stop her and tell her what happened three years ago.
“Witnesses did not back down. They would testify. Ivor was a humble child and easily manipulated,“ she said.
Ivor is survived by his son, 17, his daughter 3, Ms Baatjies and her daughter, 37, and son, 34.
Mr Hess’s daughter was a month old, when her father was murdered.
His brother, Craig Baatjies, 24, was stabbed to death in Falstaff Crescent, in Eastridge, on December 24 2006.
Ms Baatjies said with her younger son’s death she could not eat or sleep. “It was a shock. Now I just pray. There is a higher power to give me strength and courage to go on.
“I cry unto the Lord; through the grace of God we are still standing and strong. Both his brother and sister were devastated. What can we do – we can just go on,” she said.
Michael Jacobs, Mitchell’s Plain United Residents’ Association (MURA) deputy chairman and former chairman of the Mitchell’s Plain Community Police Forum, said despite the challenges within SAPS “we can still commend them for putting away gangsters that terrorise our communities.”
“A big thank you to detective Jamie Scholtz of Mitchell’s Plain SAPS who laboured under very difficult and trying circumstances – even being attacked and threatened along the way,” said Mr Jacobs.
