A Town in Turmoil

"The grisly killing and dismembering of a teenage boy has stunned the residents of Klawer as a train driver confesses to the murder"

- By Jacques Myburgh

Until recently not many people had heard of Klawer, a tiny town on the banks of the Oli­phants River. Fewer than 7 000 people live in the blink­and­you­miss­it settlement on the way to Vredendal in the Western Cape.

But shocking recent events have put Klawer on the map. The horrific death of a child, claims of occultism, a communi­ty in uproar, angry scenes outside court – all this has dominated headlines and torn the town apart.

At the centre is a mother’s heartbreak. Triesavan Wyk, too distraught to speak to the media, is being shielded by the community as she grapples with her grief.

She isn’t in Klawer when YOU visits the town – she’s in Cape Town to have DNA tests done as part of the police inves­tigation to confirm the human remains found in a sewerage pipe belong to her 13­ year ­old son, Jerobejin.

“She’s absolutely heartbroken,” says Mathilda Bains, a leader in the commu­nity and Triesa’s spokesperson. “She’s absolutely broken. Shattered. She’s frag­ile and grief­stricken.”

This isn’t the first child single mom Triesa has lost. Her older son, Adronel, drowned in 2010 aged five and she isn’t coping, those close to her say. She has only one child left now, a younger girl.