Mystery of Pretoria after-work binge that killed three

The invitation for drinks was meant to mend bridges and boost office morale.

But hours after nine colleagues from the Property Management Authority SA (PropMan) gathered last week Friday at a pub in Pretoria, three of them were mysteriously dead and another in a serious condition in hospital.

This week family and colleagues of the company’s MD, Theo Kleynhans, 60, Chariska Kloppers, 30, and Mario Pretorius, 23, were battling to understand what happened to them.

The survivor, the company’s financial assistant, Nolwazi Myeza, 32, who was discharged from Unitas Hospital this week and went to her parents Durban home to recuperate, has yet to be interviewed by police, who are being assisted by Hawks Serious Organised Crime Unit detectives.

Kloppers, a mother of two children aged five and six, was a personal assistant and Pretorius a portfolio manager at PropMan.

The four were discovered in Kleynhans’s upmarket home in Menlo Park on Saturday morning. None had obvious injuries, said private investigator Werner Koekemoer of Specialised Security Services.

The sleuth was hired by Pretorius’s family to investigate the incident.

Kleynhans, an avid naturalist photographer, shared the property with his mother, 87, and sister, 62.

Koekemoer said Kleynhans’s butler, Moses Ntanda, found Kloppers dead on a chair in the lapa, and Myeza unconscious on the floor next to her. 

Kleynhans and Pretorius were found with vomit on the stairs leading to the second floor, he said. All four were clothed.

Koekemoer said boxes of prescription medicines for pain and insomnia, and Ziplock bags believed to contain crystal meth (tik) and methcathinone, a psychoactive stimulant known as CAT, were found at the house.

“Syringes and scheduled medicines, including Dormicum and Ritalin, were recovered. The suspected tik and CAT are being analysed by police forensic services.”

He said computer hard drives linked to CCTV cameras inside the house had been analysed, but they had not revealed what happened.

“That night the cameras in the house and the recording devices appear to have been turned off, which is strange. We are trying to establish why,” said Koekemoer.

He said toxicology reports from the postmortems, which were conducted this week, are still outstanding.

“We don’t know if they took any drugs, and if they did, what they took. There are lots of unanswered questions.”

When the Sunday Times arrived at the house on Thursday, detectives from the Hawks were seen carrying out several sealed boxes. Asked which unit they were from, an officer said they were from the Hawks organised crimes narcotics section.

PropMan CEO Willie Nel said Kleynhans sent out an e-mail on Friday asking everyone to join him at the pub after work.

“Several of us, including myself, were unable to make it, but nine colleagues went,” said Nel.

He said Kleynhans sent the invitation following a staff survey on the company’s management style.

“Theo was a dark horse. You never knew where you stood with him. He could be charming one minute and then moments later really nail you,” said Nel. 

He said most of the staff left the pub at 6pm, but “Theo, Mario, Nolwazi and Chariska stayed later”.

“From Theo’s sister and mother we have established they arrived at Theo’s house at 10.15pm.”

He said it is believed they went to Kleynhans’s house because of the approaching curfew.

Nel said when he got to the house on Saturday “it was total chaos”.

“I walked into the corridor and saw two pairs of feet by the steps. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t go further.

“I didn’t know then that Chariska was in the lapa dead. I saw Nolwazi being put into the ambulance. I was so focused on her, just hoping that she would live.”

On allegations of drug use he said: “Never in my wildest dreams did I think that. I mean two are young mothers, who lived for their children. Mario was obsessed about his health and in the gym weekly.

“Theo was not healthy. He had had a few heart attacks and was recently diagnosed with diabetes and high cholesterol. I cannot imagine him using drugs.

Nel said that Kloppers started working at the company in January.

Kleynhans was a brilliant photographer and took amazing artistic nudes of people, said Nel.

Kloppers’s estranged husband, Nollies Kloppers, said: “Chariska adored her kids. She would never jeopardise their lives. She never took drugs and hardly drank. If she did it was only something that she opened and poured herself.”

Pretorius’s father declined to comment.

Kleynhans’s sister, Sonia Kleynhans, said: “I cannot talk about this.”