‘I’m going to effing kill you’

Moments after Clyde English was assaulted and threatened, allegedly by his then-girlfriend, Chantel Hartzenberg, his mother knew “death was already there”.

Days later, Jo-Anne English would come home to find her son lying on their stoep in a pool of blood after he had been fatally stabbed.

In the Western Cape High Court yesterday, on what was the first day of the trial that sees Hartzenberg in the dock on a double murder charge, Jo-Anne English told the court of that Saturday in 2007 when Hartzenberg allegedly assaulted Clyde outside their Parow home before threatening to kill him.

Hartzenberg is also accused of having killed her six-month old baby from a different relationship, Calum, before stabbing herself.

“On this particular Saturday, an old friend of Clyde’s came to visit him… an old girlfriend,” said English, who said she was watching from her bedroom window.

“She stayed for about 10 minutes and when Clyde went to see her off… I saw Chantel’s car pulling up. She jumped out of the car and she started hitting Clyde. She hit him with her fists. He tried to get away from her…

“She was hitting him all over, but particularly on his ear because she knew he wore a hearing aid.”

English said she then went to unlock a security gate to go to her son’s aid.

“By that time, Clyde was losing balance and I heard her say to him: ‘I’m going to effing kill you.’ She said it twice.”

English, who struggled to hold back tears during most of her testimony, said Hartzenberg then turned to her and said: “I’m going to effing kill your son. I’ll show you how I effing kill your son.”

“I was next to my son when I heard these words uttered. He said nothing in response. Somehow, I knew that this time she meant it. The way she said it, I felt my heart go cold. As if death was already there.”

She told Judge Vincent Saldanha that the police were called after the incident but Clyde had seemed “upset” and “he was actually scared”.

“(Afterwards), we even discussed ways of how she (planned to do it). We never thought she would actually (kill him) herself,” she said, adding that it was then that Clyde asked her where people went when they died.

“I said to him: ‘God knows your heart, so you will go to a good place,’” she said.

On the day of her son’s death, she said she received a call from her granddaughter, Roxanne, who told her: “Mama, Chantel just killed Clyde.”

When she arrived at her house, she found her son lying on the ground.

The trial continues. - Cape Times

aeysha.kassiem@inl.co.za