Cape Town – An alleged ‘lone serial arsonist’ has reportedly been torching residents’ homes in Johannesburg’s upmarket suburbs of Hyde Park, Dunkeld and Illovo after breaking in.
Reports indicate that the arsonist breaks into homes, helps himself to food and leaves his mark by defecating in the house before setting it alight.
According to a post on Facebook by a woman said to be in Sandton, the individual has allegedly burned at least two homes in the area recently.
“Apparently, he breaks in at around 3am, helps himself to some booze and food from the fridge and then sets the couches on fire. 13 houses over 12 months and four this year with more frequent occurrences.
“[The] last two were only three weeks apart. A family member was one of them and they were inside – upstairs sleeping with their baby and toddler.
“Apparently, the guy watches the owners through the window trying to fight the fire and ultimately giving up as he added accelerant (sic),” the woman said.
She added: “Please consider getting smoke detectors, setting your alarms and beams and getting fire extinguishers. This guy is watching people and gets a sick sense of gratification watching these huge houses go up in flames with Rmillions lost.”
According to The South African, founder and head of eBlockwatch Andre Snyman shared that he was alerted to suspicions of an arsonist.
He said he had been asked to not make any information public by both insurance companies and investigators who “want to catch the guy”.
Snyman took to eBlockwatch’s Facebook page, and shared an interview with a Hurlingham resident who claimed that her home was also set alight.
The woman in the video said she had camera footage of the alleged arsonist breaking into a home and setting it alight before leaving.
“A single individual who we have camera footage of from the cameras he didn’t cut broke into our home. When he hit [the first passage] in our house, the alarm started going off.
“We can track him walking from the main kitchen, dining room, lounge area straight down the passage to our main bedroom and he set it on fire.”
“He didn’t steal anything … I don’t think his intention was to steal,” the woman said.
According to Times Live, police have poured water on these claims, with Bramley police station commander Owen King saying he was in charge of a large area which encompassed the suburbs in question, and was not aware of a serial arsonist operating in his jurisdiction.
“There is possibly a lot of stuff that happened and was never properly reported to us or went through other channels. But I can confirm that since January 1 2021 to date we received only three reports of house fires — one in Illovo, one in Hyde Park and one in Marlborough Gardens,” the report quoted King as saying.
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Compiled by Betha Madhomu
