Update

SEDGEFIELD NEWS - Knysna police made a breakthrough into the investigation of a house robbery case in Groenvlei, Sedgefield dating back to December 2017 when they arrested a 43-year-old female suspect positively linked to the incident this past weekend.

Readers might remember the tale of 89-year-old Groenvlei resident Janet Rendell who, on 5 December 2017, was attacked in her own home and then feigned death to get her attacker to release her.

The suspect in the case at the time, a woman, was able to get away with an undisclosed amount of money after trying to choke Rendell to death, and has been living on luck since then – that is, until the Knysna police finally tracked her down.

According to police spokesperson Sergeant Chris Spies the suspect, Delisha Hansen, appeared in the Knysna Magistrate's Court on Monday 16 July. The case was postponed to 22 August with the suspect remanded, he said.

10 minutes of terror
Rendell relayed the scene that played itself out on that fateful day to the Knysna-Plett Herald shortly after the attack. Despite some bruising on her rib cage, her one arm and her neck, she seemed as fit as a fiddle during the visit.

According to the feisty octogenarian at the time, she was about to make a phone call when the suspect appeared next to her, “as though from thin air”. What followed was 10 minutes of terror.

Last year, during a visit from the Knysna-Plett Herald, Janet Rendell demonstrated to journalist Stefan Goosen how her female attacker tried strangling her, both hands around the neck and thumbs digging in. Photos: Stefan Goosen 

After grabbing the phone from Rendell and unplugging it, the woman apparently went straight for Rendell’s handbags on a chair behind them, and without a word started rummaging through it.

Playing dead
The fragile Rendell then grabbed at some money the intruder had taken from a handbag, who then went straight for Rendell’s neck. “She squeezed harder and harder and started backing me up toward the front door. I could hardly breathe and my legs started giving way. At this point I had almost collapsed onto the rug near my front door,” Rendell recounted at the time.

As the intruder squeezed tighter, Rendell’s "quick thinking" kicked in. “I tried saying, ‘No!’ but couldn’t get the words out, and thought she was going to kill me for sure. What would you do in that situation? I just went limp, dropped my head to one side and let my mouth hang open a bit – I pretended to be dead,” said Rendell.

After the attacker let go of Rendell’s neck, the attacker proceeded to drag her by the arms along the floor into a nearby bathroom. “And there I stayed on the floor, listening carefully until I couldn’t hear her anymore. I got up without a sound and quietly walked to the kitchen.”

Soon Rendell’s husband Tony, who was out at the time, returned home and called for police.

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