Follow Us
Like Us
About Pat Joffe
Pat Joffe (1935 - 2012)
Brief overview:
Pat (76), a former treasurer of the SA Rhodesian Ridgeback Club, was murdered on her smallholding in Mdandi, Centurion, Pretoria on 6th January 2012. Originally thought to have been shot, police uncovered, after the coroner's report, that she had been beaten and stabbed to death. A neighbour found her around 11h00 the following morning locked in the guest bathroom.
Brief Biography:
- Other Victims/Family
- Funeral/Memorial
- The Farm/Smallholding
- The Region (Land disputes, other incidents etc.)
Attack Details:
- Date and time of attack
- Weapons
- Items Stolen
- The perpetrators took her car, television, computer and cellphone.
- Investigative officer/SAPS Case No:
- Torture, Gratuitous violence
- Indications of Hate Crime? Threats etc.
Perpetrator details:
- Number and Descriptions
- Arrests
- Name/s and age/s of Perpetrator/s
- Country of origin of Perpetrator/s
- Trial/Conviction
Additional Biographical Information:
By THERESA TAYLOR Pat Joffe was in orange when she was murdered: an orange-and-white striped shirt and orange pants.
She believed the colour symbolised life and happiness, and so the 77-year-old wore it constantly. She painted the walls of her home and the stables on her plot in Mnandi, Centurion, orange.
Joffe was a fiery redhead who lived alone on a large plot and worked until the day she died. She was a war child who had come out from England with her parents as a young woman. She was married for a short time in her youth, but at the time of her death she had no known family.
Neighbours and friends agree that Joffe would have given her attackers hell. She wasn’t a lady to go down without a fight, and had once knocked an employee out cold when he tried to attack her.
She was still in her work clothes on the evening of January 6 when a man or men entered her house. They stabbed her before locking her in the guest bathroom – where she was found by a neighbour around 11am the next morning. They took her car, television, computer and cellphone.
But her attackers didn’t find her gun – which she kept in a secret hiding place when she wasn’t carrying it on a holster on her hip. “They probably tortured her to reveal the gun’s hiding place… but she was a very brave lady,” said John Bonnard, the neighbour who found her body.
Kim Tucker, who first got to know Joffe when she was 12 years old and choosing her first horse, said she was a strong woman who would join the manual labourers and do maintenance on her property.
“She had an incredible rapport with animals. She could look at a horse and tell the nature of the horse, and match it to nature of the person.”
As an adult, Tucker would spend weekends with Joffe, going on rides and grooming their horses. But she never worried that Joffe was lonely living by herself.
“She was never lonely because she would talk to her animals,” said Tucker.
But Joffe wasn’t perfect. “Pat wasn’t afraid to speak her mind, and she was very sharp with her tongue. But she had a good heart, and if you told her that something she had said hurt you, she would apologise.”
The elderly woman had a high staff turnover. “Her employees had respect for her, but she also had a few enemies,” said Tucker, “Perhaps whoever killed her had a vendetta against her.”
A few weeks before Joffe’s death, friends had noticed a bruise on her arm – apparently from an altercation with a man working on her property.
The dogs didn’t attack whoever came to kill her.
Police are investigating the murder, but do not keep statistics of rural killings, as they fall within the general murder statistics.
The nearest thing to official statistics is the data collected by various organisations across the country. Between 1991 and 2009, the Transvaal Agricultural Union recorded 1 266 murders and 2 070 attacks on people living on farms and smallholdings.
But as AgriSA’s Kobus Visser points out, it’s extremely difficult to obtain accurate statistics: “Everybody thumbsucks their own figure… we used to have a system with the police where they gave us data… we are busy talking to them to see if we can’t start something again,” he said.
Joffe’s estate will be donated to animal organisations. Her animals have been given homes by friends and neighbours. - The Star
Her long-time friend Mrs Liz Megginson shangara@icon.co.za writes:” Pat Joffe was my friend for many years and I am trying to get her album of photos. .. The police initially thought that she was shot, as her wounds were deep, but the first part of the coroner's report suggests that she was stabbed.
She was also beaten, then locked in a bathroom and the key removed. I assume from this that she was still alive when she was put in there and probably bled to death. Just before Christmas a groom who worked for someone else who stabled a horse at the site, had he grabbed her and left bruises on her arms.
Pat had just turned 76 on the 16th December, but was very slim, fit and active and was still able to ride. I shall keep in touch, as I do believe these things should be recorded. No one has informed the press. I am not sure if this should be made public, or not?
We have lost several people in the dog world, through farm murders, some very brutal…. “
Links to Media articles:
view all
Pat Joffe's Timeline
| 1935 |
December 16, 1935
|
England, United Kingdom
|
|
| 2012 |
January 6, 2012
Age 76
|
Mnandi, Centurion, Pretoria, GP, South Africa
|