RESIDENTS were horrified when a mentally ill man bought a new axe on Tuesday and went on the rampage.
He threatened to hack everyone he met in the street with the axe and then started chopping up an elderly man.
The residents of Mabopane, Tshwane thought the man was high on drugs and started beating him with anything they could lay their hands on. When he was down, they allegedly asked a car to run him over and were about to set him on fire when cops arrived.
The madala was rushed to hospital, where he later died.
Martha Mokoena said she saw the man hacking the madala. She said motorists stopped and begged the man to leave the old man alone.
“When he didn’t stop, people started pelting him with stones. The axe was new and sharp and he chopped up the madala as if he was a dry log,” she said.
Thabo Baloyi (30), a relative of the man, said he had never been violent before. “He was on his way to visit my mum and I wonder if he would have chopped her into pieces if he’d arrived at her house,” Thabo said.
He said people might have taken advantage of the man’s mental illness and made him turn violent.
“In his whole life, he has never laid a hand on anyone. This was pure evil.”
Police spokeswoman Captain Reineth Motlana said cases of murder and attempted murder were opened. She said the man was in a critical condition in hospital.
