2009/11/30
THERE was hardly a dry eye yesterday as more than 500 heartbroken mourners turned up to say one last goodbye to murdered Kenton-on-Sea businessman Juan Jansen.
The popular 31-year-old supermarket owner was gunned down on Monday morning while walking to a nearby bank – holding hands with his pregnant wife Nelmarie.
With the NG Kerk Dias packed to the rafters, more than 200 mourners had to sit outside and watch proceedings via a camera link from inside the church.
In one of the biggest funerals the seaside resort has ever seen, mourners from all walks of life – and even leaders of other local churches – fought back tears as a photo montage of Jansen’s life was shown at the beginning of the heart-wrenching service.
Starting with photos from his childhood, the ever-smiling Juan’s life unfolded through his teenage years and into more recent memories of him with his wife and two children – Conrad, eight, and Diedré, six.
Although most of the adults battled to hold back the tears, the two children appeared not to properly grasp the fact that their father was gone forever.
Led by Dominee Mike Smuts, mourners heard how the senseless killing had ripped the close knit community apart.
“A day like this is so exceptionally shocking for us as a community.
“It was a senseless murder. The community loved Juan. There is a lot of anger and heartache.”
Although Smuts said people had the right to be angry, he urged the rainbow nation of mourners not to react with “racism and hate”.
“We must choose not to go the road of revenge and racism. That is too easy.”
Earlier, the murdered businessman’s brother-in-law, François Wehmeyer, told mourners how even staff working at the Spar considered Jansen a friend rather than just a “baas”.
The entire staff of the local supermarket occupied several rows inside the church and later many broke down in loud sobs as they gathered round the hearse to say a last goodbye.
Fighting back the tears, Wehmeyer praised Jansen’s Uitenhage-based parents, Oscar and Belinda, for raising such a well-loved person.
“What he was is a reflection of the type of people you are.”
Family friend Pastor Anton Prinsloo – speaking on behalf of Jansen’ s parents – said the murdered businessman was the apple of his father’s eye.
Jansen was murdered in cold blood after he had been accosted by two men – who shot him in the leg and took the shop’s takings – and then shot him again in the chest.
Although police initially thought three cars were involved in the mid- morning robbery on Kenton’s Main Street, police spokesperson Captain Mali Govender later said two of the vehicles that sped off were terrified people who had witnessed the brutal murder.
Govender yesterday said no arrests had been made yet. - By DAVID MACGREGOR, Port Alfred Bureau
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