WATCH: 22-year-old man in court for brutal triple murder of pensioners

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DURBAN - A tall youth with a thin bandage around his head stood in the dock of the Pietermaritzburg Magistrate's Court, charged with murdering three elderly people in retirement homes in three weeks last month. Alleged serial killer Kershwin Goldstone, 22, blinked as he looked down while State prosecutor Patty David told magistrate Vincent Mncanyana that Goldstone had been linked to the murders through DNA and fingerprints. He had also made a full confession before a magistrate and had withdrawn a request for a bail application, she said. David said Goldstone would plead guilty at his trial. Behind Gladstone, in the court gallery, sat Pietermaritzburg scientist Timothy O’Connor, whose 92-year-old mother Patricia was allegedly Goldstone’s first victim, on July 11.

According to the charge sheet, Goldstone came from “no fixed address”. However, people beefing up security at Jacaranda Lodge, next door to Kenwyn Retirement Home in Pietermaritz Street where Patricia O’Connor lived, believed Goldstone lived in a rented garage a stone’s throw away.

Speaking to The Independent on Saturday after Goldstone’s case was postponed to August 20, Timothy, an ecologist, spoke of how having personal involvement in crime, which one could become immune to in this country, “alerts one to just what a bad place we are in”.

To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Scientist Timothy O’Connor, whose 92-year-old mother was one of the Pietermaritzburg old-age home murder victims, attended the magistrate’s court in the provincial capital for alleged killer Kershwin Goldstone’s first hearing. Video: Duncan Guy





“I’ve had to stand back and be quite intellectual about this and ask, okay, do we have a system that is going to work in this case?”

Praising the police for their professionalism, he said of the court process: “Let’s see where this process takes us and at least gives us a tiny glimmer of intellectual absolution as to what is going on.

“Whether that process is sufficient to quell that deep anger that always is brewing within, I don’t know but at least one facet of it might be quelled.”

The other two elderly people who allegedly fell victim to Goldstone were Patricia Elizabeth Tugwell and Roland Heathcote, both 89. They were stabbed on July 31 and July 21 respectively.

Patricia O’Connor was strangled, while the accused reportedly slit Tugwell’s throat and Heathcote was stabbed in the head.

Goldstone allegedly took jewellery and a TV set from Patricia O’Connor, two cellphones and groceries from Heathcote and cellphone, jewellery and handbags from Tugwell.

According to reports, the killer was suspected to have scaled a high wall to reach Patricia O’Connor at Kenwyn Retirement Home and climbed drainpipes to reach Tugwell on the second floor of Jacaranda Lodge and a wheelchair-bound Heathcote on the third floor.

Panic set in at the retirement homes and an elderly woman reportedly became hysterical on hearing the news of one of the murders. She had to be treated by paramedics at the scene.

“They were totally vulnerable,” said Timothy.

“They would have been totally incapable in any way of posing a physical threat even if they had tried to defend themselves.

“So, one is party to an incredibly extreme act of violence that is unconscionable and inexcusable.”

Timothy said his mother moved into Kenwyn Retirement Home from Johannesburg 10 years ago when her health started to deteriorate.

“She still had her mental faculties, reading the newspaper, watching the news and doing things.

“She came down here to enjoy the last years of her life, watching her family, six grandchildren and the first great-grandchildren beginning to pop out.

“Last year we took her to the Drakensberg for a weekend. Although she found it taxing, it was a lovely and enjoyable experience.”

Timothy added that, at 92, his mother “would have been waiting for the inevitable”.

“But the inevitable is not meant to eventuate in this manner.”

Timothy said his mother had lost a fiancé, a first husband - his father when he was 18 months old - and a second husband.

“She didn’t have a good run in terms of partners and, in her early 50s, she was alone but nonetheless gave (the three of) us the support we needed to get us through life.

“We didn’t come from an economically advantaged background, but she was a foundation.”