A Final Smile, A Deadly Dispute: The Tangled Tragedy of Wiandre Pretorius

Just hours before his death, Wiandre Pretorius appeared beaming in a Facebook caricature, his fiancée Juan Mare Eksteena police sergeantand their child smiling beside him. The AI-generated image, posted by Eksteen in a light-hearted trend, now stands as a haunting digital relic. By Sunday, Pretorius was dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, following an argument with his partner in her presence.

The South African Police Service (SAPS) has confirmed the suicide and registered an inquest docket. National spokesperson Athlenda Mathe stated an argument preceded the incident, and police are “studying that particular footage” while investigating its cause. Eksteen has been contacted for comment.

A Life Shadowed by Violent Allegations

Pretorius’s death is not an isolated personal tragedy but the latest violent episode in a complex, multi-layered saga. He was a central figure in a web of alleged assassinations and police corruption currently under investigation.

Just days before his death, on 5 February, he narrowly survived an attempted hit in Boksburg when gunmen fired 16 bullets into his car. This attack came after he was named in testimony at the high-profile Madlanga Commission in November 2025.

Witness Marius van der Merwe had implicated Pretorius in the 2022 torture and murder of Emmanuel Mbhense, whose body was dumped in a Germiston lake. Van der Merwe himself was assassinated outside his home on 5 December 2025. Pretorius subsequently became a “primary person of interest” in that murder.

A Chilling Pattern of Deaths

Mathe revealed a chilling context: of 12 individuals identified as persons of interest in the Mbhense murder, only eight remain alive. Besides Pretorius, three others were killed “in an assassination style.” This pattern suggests a brutal cleanup operation targeting those with knowledge of the case.

Pretorius had been questioned, and his firearms and cellphones were seized by police. The investigation, said Mathe, is at an “advanced stage.”

The Independent Police Investigative Directorate (Ipid) has concluded its probe into Mbhense’s killing, and the docket is now with the Gauteng Director of Public Prosecutions, awaiting a decision on who to charge.

Unanswered Questions

The juxtaposition is jarring: a happy family post followed by a fatal domestic dispute, set against a backdrop of alleged hitmen, corrupt officers, and multiple murders. While police investigate the immediate circumstances of the suicide, the larger, unanswered questions loom.

Was his death a moment of private despair, or was it influenced by the immense pressure of being a marked man in a deadly investigation? The Facebook smile, now frozen in time, offers no clues, only a stark reminder of how quickly a life entangled in violence can unravel.

{Source: Citizen}

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