Mugger on the loose

Date: 07 July 2017 By: Isabel Venter

A young mother of three of Louis Trichardt managed to escape with her life when, after she had been stabbed in the leg, she bravely fought back against her assailant.

Tshepo (see did not want her full name to be published) was attacked and overpowered on Tuesday when she was walking along Leeu Street. She usually goes walking and jogging for exercise in the afternoons after work. The attack happened at around 18:00 when Tshepo was just about finished and heading back to her home.

“The whole incident has left me shaken,” said Tshepo on Wednesday. “This is the first time that something like this had happened to me … I’m struggling to come to grips with it,” she added. Ironically enough, says Tshepo, she regularly rotates her exercise routes to ward off attacks.

On Tuesday, she remembers greeting a passing couple, before she was attacked. The attacker grabbed Tshepo’s shoulder from behind. He then struggled with her until he had forced her down on the ground. Once Tshepo was on the ground the attacker started searching her.

He demanded, in TshiVenda, that Tshepo hand over her cell phone, which she did not have with her. The attacker then decided to grab Tshepo by the arm and drag her to the nearby bushes.

Tshepo, however, kicked in her heels and decided to fight off the man. “I was just saying to myself that he will not take me today,” said Tshepo. She wielded the only “weapon” she had at her disposal, a piece of branch she was walking with, and started hitting her attacker with it.

When the attacker tried to drag her into the bushes, Tshepo used the sharpest end of the stick to get her point across. “Before it I was hitting him with the stick, all over, and he did not want to let me go, so I stabbed at him with my stick,” said Tshepo.

This, apparently, caught the man by surprise, because he enquired from Tshepo why she was hitting him and asking her to stop. “I was in such a panic, and screaming and it was then that the man lifted up his hand high and forced something into my leg,” said Tshepo.

The attacker then fled into the bushes, leaving Tshepo behind on the sidewalk. When she pulled her hands from the wound on her leg, seeing the blood, Tshepo realized that she had been stabbed with a knife.

The first thing Tshepo could think of was to get away from the scene, afraid that her attacker might come back with backup. She then tried to get help from the nearby houses. Fortunately, a passing motorist realised that Tshepo was in distress and pulled over to help her.

“I simply jumped in his bakkie and asked him to drive me to the hospital immediately,” said Tshepo. She only knows this man as Donald, but says she owns him her life for stopping and helping her.

Tshepo said she will not, while her leg is still healing, be walking around anytime soon and she will only consider going out once she has recovered physically and emotionally.

In the meantime, the newspaper has learned that Tshepo was not the only person to be attacked along Leeu Street. According to the Makhado Police, a girl student from Ridgeway College was robbed at knifepoint about two weeks ago. “The girl was unhurt,” confirmed Const Irene Radzilane, local police spokesperson. She also said that no arrests had been made following the incident.

Following the most recent violent attack on Tshepo, Radzilane urged residents to be vigilant and not to go walking or jogging alone when it is getting dark outside.

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Isabel Venter

Isabel joined the Zoutpansberger and Limpopo Mirror in 2009 as a reporter. She holds a BA Degree in Communication Sciences from the University of South Africa. Her beat is mainly crime and court reporting.

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