A 73-year-old British engineer has been strangled to death with his own belt in his driveway after popping down to the pub for a beer.
Retired expat Karl Lauks was said to be the “life and soul” of his adoptive town of Tulbagh 70 miles north of Cape Town, in South Africa.
FacebookA retired British engineer who settled down in South Africa was ambushed in his car driveway[/caption]
Jamie Pyatt News LtdKarl Lauks, 73, was strangled to death[/caption]
FacebookHe was said to be the ‘life and soul’ of his adoptive town of Tulbagh[/caption]
On Sunday evening after visiting his local watering hole he went back home.
But after parking his car in the drive he was attacked before he could get out from behind the wheel.
Lauks was battered into submission and his leather belt taken off him.
The killer is said to have used Karl’s scarf to silence him by jamming it in his mouth to stop his screams.
He is then believed to have wrapped the tragic man’s belt around his neck and choked him to death.
The cold-blooded killer took Lauks’ mobile phone – the fourth one stolen from him in 6 months – the murder weapon, wallet and house keys and left him dead in the car.
AC/DC enthusiast Lauks started work in Western Province over 20 years ago, but fell in love with South Africa’s fourth oldest town and never returned home.
He was originally from Bradford, Yorkshire.
His beaten up corpse was only discovered when a neighbour saw his drive gate and car door open on Monday the next day.
His cousin Tessa Muller, a chef in the Tulbagh Hotel where Lauks was a regular, was called and asked to check on him.
She told Netwerk24: “When I got there and saw the security gate and his car door open I knew that was not like him and feared the worst as I walked up and looked inside.
“I knew he was dead right then and there when I saw the scarf in his mouth and his eyes wide open and I knew I must not touch anything and I called the police.”
She added: “Karl was loved and probably one of the best know person in Tulbagh and would always be out and about having breakfast with us then his lunch at Herholdt’s Pub.
“There was not a single day he ever stayed in and he was the life and soul of everywhere he went but as he got older the locals watched over him the best they could.
The heartbroken relative called said the attack was “truly horrible”.
Police, who are stationed on the same street Lauks lives on, rushed to the scene.
A Western Cape police spokesman confirmed: “A 29-year-old man has been arrested for the murder of a 73-year-old man and remanded in custody until next Monday”.
A close friend and fellow drinker at the Herholdt’s Pub said: “Karl lit his place up and a number of other bars in Tulbagh and now his regular seat is sitting there empty.
“His British sense of humour and jokes endeared him to everyone and he would always finish at the bar with ‘one for the road’ before ‘going home to feed the crocodile’.
“Karl’s ‘crocodile’ was a pit bull he bought called Wally for protection after he was badly beaten up in robbery for his phone last year and had his shoulder broken.”
The friend continued to explain: “He got a pit bull to protect himself at night but kept it indoors to stop him barking and I guess the robber knew that and attacked Karl before he could get in the front door.”
The pal added that Karl was a widower who had lost his wife to cancer some 15 years ago.
He had lived alone ever since according to the friend.
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