VIDEO: Shooting rampage
A Bethelsdorp man with a history of mental illness calmly threatened to kill his wife and then himself as they enjoyed morning tea yesterday, before embarking on a shooting rampage during which he wounded two men before turning the gun on himself.
The drama erupted at about 6am when Ronald Vogelstruis, 57, ran out of his Kleinskool house and shot two strangers, and then raced about a kilometre to his brother’s house where he barricaded himself in, with police arriving minutes later to try to talk him into leaving the house.
As the small Limberg Road house was surrounded by police, the street was blocked off while negotiators tried to lure Vogelstruis out.
Metro medics were called to the scene in case a shootout erupted during the negotiations.
[caption id="attachment_212540" align="aligncenter" width="400"] Ronald Vogelstruis[/caption]
Curious neighbours stayed in their yards and watched from a distance.
At 8.45am – after an almost two-hour stand-off – Vogelstruis shot himself in the chest while sitting in the lounge.
Police, with guns drawn, charged into the house where he was found, hanging onto life by a thread.
Medics were called to assist but he was declared dead 15 minutes later.
A scribbled suicide note was found close to his body.
Negotiators had refused to buckle to Vogelstruis’s demands to see his wife, given that he had told her earlier he wanted to shoot her.
“At one stage, it looked like he was going to come out the house,” an official said.
“The weapon was down on the couch and he was talking to the negotiators – it looked promising.
“Something happened and he just shot himself in the chest.”
Medics ran into the house, but attempts to revive him failed.
There is no evidence Vogelstruis knew the two men he shot.
Caesar van Rayner, 52, was shot five times in the upper body, while Stephen Kulani, 48, was hit three times. Both men are in Livingstone Hospital’s intensive care unit.
[caption id="attachment_212538" align="aligncenter" width="630"] He told me this would be the last cup of tea I am going to have and that I must enjoy it – Allie Vogelstruis[/caption]
In an interview two hours after the shooting, Vogelstruis’s visibly shocked wife of 30 years, Allie, 54, told how, shortly after waking up, her husband had casually told her he planned to murder her and then kill himself.