On the evening of Jose Da Silva’s arrest, I was at home on the couch when I got a call from Senior Superintendent Leonie Ras from Forensics, informing me that a suspect in the Harrowyn case had been arrested. She asked me to come out and interview him. During my master’s studies, when I was doing my research, I had interviewed serial murderers in South African prisons, but this was the first time I was interviewing someone in the context of an active investigation, let alone at their house and not in a prison setting. I decided to interview the suspect in the bathroom, where the incident took place. I had a quick look around the living room and open-plan kitchen, and peeked into the fridge. I don’t really know why I did this, but I often do it. I guess you can tell a lot about a person by the contents of their fridge.
I also had a quick look through Da Silva’s bookshelf. There were one or two VHS porn videos that I watched later, but there was nothing unusual about them.
The house was in a neat complex in Centurion, it had three bedrooms with a little garden and a double garage; all very nice.
Da Silva said that he had phoned Harrowyn because he wanted to decorate his place nicely. He had sold his previous home and this one looked a bit empty. He claimed a friend at work had told him about a specific décor shop, and he went there and met a “young little girl”. He liked the furniture in the shop, but he didn’t think he’d be able to afford to decorate his whole place. He just wanted some tips, and a quotation if he wanted something specific, like couches. He arranged with Harrowyn to come over to his place to give him a quote on the Tuesday. “Was this the first interior decorator you’d contacted?” I asked him. He said that it was not. There had been another decorator before her, “a bit of a chubby lady”, from House of Wood in Clubview, Centurion. He couldn’t remember her name, only her appearance. It was this “chubby lady” who had led to his arrest.
Da Silva described this first incident as follows: “I play this game. I lie about my name and give her a number that you can’t trace. I just wanted to see that if I play my game, can I get caught out or not? So, I had this lady out to my place. I told her my name is Lionel Monty, gave her my telephone number and even explained where my place was. She looked around, told me how she was going to give me a quote for furniture, and I thought, ‘Gee, you are quite convincing, you can invite a woman to your house and they believe you.’ I thought, here is this woman, she believes me; that I am looking to decorate this place.
“In a way, I did want a quotation — how much it was going to cost to decorate — but at the same time I couldn’t afford it. She started talking about thousands of this and that, so I played along. I told her to send me a quote … I even went and paid her consultation fees, because after the little game was over, I phoned her and told her I wasn’t interested. I actually wanted to go on holiday; I wasn’t going to buy furniture.”
Not wanting to let on what I already knew, I asked Da Silva if he had done something like that before, and he said that he had met with estate agents pretending to want to buy expensive property. A very handy tactic when interviewing a suspect is to ask questions to which you already know the answer, as it helps you gauge how honest the person is being in general.
“I would lead people on and then, the moment that I realise that they are convinced, I would leave it; I would drop it. Like going to the house with an agent — she shows me the house and I would jokingly tell her, ‘Ja, I think this is the house my wife and I are looking for.’ And people just get ecstatic about it, they wouldn’t leave you alone, they would phone you the next day, and in the meantime I was just laughing, thinking, you know, ‘I don’t want to; it was just a game for me.’
“On this day, this lady did something wrong, you know, because she insulted me. When I showed her my place and told her I want to decorate my house … and she thought I lived in some mansion, or palace, she like kind of just gave me the dirty look, like, ‘Why are you wasting my time?’ look, you know, she didn’t think much of my little place.”
I asked Da Silva whether she had just given him a look, or was it something she had said or done. He said, ‘Well, she treated me like a little kid, like a little boy … type of disrespect. She’s, um, snotty, upper-class Sandton … person, you know, and … I just pretended that I didn’t hear that, that she didn’t get to me, and I just decided, ‘Well, I’ll teach you a little lesson,’ and I went to get a little stick. I had a little club in the garage … She was looking around, and I just waited for her, to catch her in this position where it would be difficult for her to just run out … and I just gave her a good shot on the head, and she dropped.
“And then I realised, ‘S***, you know, now you’ve really … now this game that you’ve been playing … What are you going to do now? This woman is going to get up and go to the cops … you know … and get you into trouble.’
“So I tied her up, closed her hands, and I thought, ‘She is going to scream’ … She was like semi-militaristic, or dictator-type of girl, you know …”
In my opinion, it is unlikely that Harrowyn had said or done anything to insult Da Silva. Consciously or unconsciously, he needed to justify what he was doing. He had to externalise the responsibility for his actions.
I asked him if the victim was still alive at that point, and he replied, “Ja, I was good to her, I wasn’t nasty. I didn’t hit her, I didn’t rape her … I gave her water, tried to speak to her. I didn’t know what to do … Why did I do that? You can’t hit somebody and then the next, you know, if you tell her, ‘I am sorry,’ I don’t think they will believe you, they will think, ‘S***, this guy’s a psycho,’ or something.
“You know, when she was tied up, I tried to explain to her why I did it, that she shouldn’t speak to me that way.”
Da Silva continued: “And then I was afraid she was going to start screaming, so I then tied her hands and feet, you know.”I asked what he used to tie her up. “I had cable ties, these things we use at my work, they work great, so … I had some in the garage, and then I didn’t know what to do with this woman, because I didn’t want to rape her. She’s … not … didn’t do anything for me, and anyway I am not … that’s not what turns me on … and I was stuck with this woman and what do I do now?
“She fell here on the floor and I got some blankets, because she told me the floor’s cold, so I put her on the blanket. I used to give her water when she got thirsty … I didn’t take her clothes off, but then, I did something, I wasn’t prepared. I realised, ‘S***, if you do this, what now? Now you are in really serious s*** because this woman can … go to the cops … you know … get you into big s*** because I have just attacked a person, I have just knocked her.’
“And I, ja … and in the beginning I was aggressive, I told her, you know, ‘Who the f*** do you think you are to come and talk to me this way, you know, you snotty …’ Then … I thought and thought, you know, ‘What am I going to do?’
“It was quick, I made the decision, she was tied up. I thought, ‘S***, you know, as long as you’re alive you are going to get me into s***. I might as well just get rid of you.’
“So I went into the garage. I’ve got an axe, and I thought, ‘If I give you just one shot in the head … it will get rid of you.’
“The only thing is, how? I am a total amateur at these things; I didn’t prepare myself for this. I have just seen it in the movies … Got very bloody, so I thought maybe if I throw her into the bath … At least all the bleeding is being taken away, and uh …”
I interrupted: “So you came back with an axe?”
“Ja … just gave her a good shot from behind because I couldn’t confront her and enjoy what I was doing. I did it the coward way.”
Da Silva vehemently denied that any sexual activities took place at any point. After he hit Harrowyn with the axe, he placed her body in the bath. He then paced around trying to decide what to do next.
Ja … just gave her a good shot from behind because I couldn’t confront her and enjoy what I was doing. I did it the coward way
— Jose da Silva
As part of my interview strategy I used the same frame of reference he’d used to get him to divulge more. I said that she’d messed things up by not playing the “game”.Da Silva said, “All she had to do was do what all the other ladies did, because she was about the second interior decorator. Was just, you know, gimme … make me feel, ‘Hey, you are going to have a nice place here! Maybe you don’t have a lot of money, but with time it could look the way you want it to.’ But then I was stuck with this … dead woman in my bath, and I froze. I … I wasn’t this criminal-minded person at all. What the f*** now? What do you do with a dead body? You know, these things you see in movies of people chopping up with, with acids … chains … and digging holes, you know … I mean, get real … Then I thought quick. I said, ‘Look, s***, I am really f***ed, ’cause the maid is going to come on Thursday.’ I had to kind of tell her, ‘Look, don’t come,’ even though I sat with all the dirty washing.
“I was, like, paralysed, you know. I couldn’t … I didn’t know what to do, what now? What is the next step? Then I took her out, put her on the blanket. She was lying there where those, what do you call those things … bean bags. She was [in the bath for] a full day. I took all of these things (points to bath mats) and I just put it over her, because I couldn’t stand looking at a dead body …
“And I thought, ‘Look, you’ve got to get rid of this,’ because after a while, standing here, I think with the heat and all that, a bit of a smell started coming out. What I did was, first of all I couldn’t look at her face. I couldn’t turn her around and look at her. I tied her, where her head was gashed, I put a little cloth to close her, and I took this tape, just to keep her head …
“When I took her out of the bath, and I kind of like, I wouldn’t say I cleaned her, because I left her bra on. I couldn’t even take her bra off. The clothes I cut off, because I forgot that a body goes hard after a certain period. I didn’t have that experience, you know, so I had to rip it off, cut it off.”
Rigor mortis sets in after a period of time and the joints become stiff, starting at the extremities and working its way towards the centre of the body. Then eventually it dissipates, reversing the pathway. Having to manhandle a body when it is in rigor mortis is difficult. You can manually “break” the rigor mortis so that you can move the limbs, and it is sometimes accompanied by a cracking or tearing sound. That sound always gave me the heebie-jeebies.
Essentially, Da Silva’s recounting of what happened illustrates the fact that he needed his ego stroked and that, from his perspective, the victim was at least partly to blame for what happened to her. I also have to point out that he told his domestic help not to come, even though that meant he would have to cope with all the dirty laundry. I think this passing comment gave me some insight into how he viewed the world.
He also mentioned that he covered the victim because he couldn’t stand looking at her, which reminded me of the crime scene where he had left her lying face down, probably also because it was easier to not have to look at her face and, ultimately, the result of his actions.
Besides rigor mortis, after a few days another problem occurs: the effects of decomposition start to become obvious.
“Then I was still stuck at home with a dead body.”
You never forget the smell of death — your brain instantly recognises it — so Da Silva was going to have to dispose of the body, and soon.
“So ja, because she was on the blanket, I dragged her, put her in the boot, and it was very horrible, it was late at night, little traffic … I just threw the body out, and I thought nobody is ever going to … find out about it.”
I wanted to write this book before I forgot the finer details. As strange as that may sound, you can forget these things, and it is probably healthier to do so. You can visit the depths of hell — just don’t hang around there for too long
— Gérard Labuschagne
This contradicted what he later said at the trial, when he claimed that he wanted to be caught and chastised the police for taking six weeks to do so.“Then I carried on playing my silly game of pretending. Um, I think some agents around this area, I lied and said I was interested, but by then I had lost interest because of what had happened. I thought, ‘S***, Jose, that’s not, uh, it’s not a game any more.’”I mentioned that he had left the victim’s body in a place where it could easily be found, and he replied, “I wanted her to be found.”
“Why?”
“Well, maybe whoever was looking for her would find her and bury her instead of … what else should I have done?”
“Why did you only play this game with ladies ?” “I never played games with men, you know, um, I just find ladies nicer. And even with this woman, even though she was totally … defenceless, you know, I could have taken advantage of her if I had wanted to, and I didn’t. I could have raped her, could have turned her … Didn’t excite me … I could have hit her and beat her … tried to get money out of her … It’s … it wasn’t there. It was that split violent action … And then afterwards you can’t change it. Ja, so I put her body there so that she would be found. I could have dumped it in a thousand other places.”
• This is an edited extract
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