Four blacks—one a Zimbabwean—will appear in court for a brutal farm murder in South Africa in which the bound white victim was thrown alive into a crocodile pit, the Maroela Media news service has reported.

According to the report, Dr. Louis John Botha, 64, a game farmer from the north east Swartwater area, Limpopo, was brutally murdered by four attackers over the last weekend of February 2015.

The victim and his family.

The former medical doctor had started game farming in the region fifteen years ago, and was attacked sometime on the Saturday by the gang. He was alone at the time, as the rest of his family was in Pretoria.

When he failed to communicate with anyone through to Sunday, his neighbors were alerted and came to investigate. They found Dr. Botha’s house standing open. Inside, the safe was open and there were bloodstains on the floor and walls.

A search was launched, and his body was discovered the next day in a water hole only seven hundred feet away. His hands had been bound and he had suffered a severe blow to his head, but was alive when thrown into the water pit, where crocodiles had fed on him, according to his daughter Riëtte.

“They were waiting for him in the house,” she said. “He was tied up and hit several times with a spade and sticks, and then thrown into the pit and left for dead.”

She said it was apparent that he had tried to swim to the banks of the water hole even though his hands were firmly bound, but had failed in his attempt as crocodiles had eaten chunks out of his body.

Police spokesman Colonel Ronel Otto said that the four “suspects” had been arrested the following Friday in the town of Groblersdal following an intensive investigation.

“A firearm and a cell phone which had been stolen during the attack were found in the suspects’ possession,” Otto said.

The four blacks will appear in court on the same day that Dr. Botha’s funeral will be held in the local church.