Henri van Breda 2015

On January 27, 2015, inside a wealthy, high-security gated community in Stellenbosch, South Africa, 20-year-old Henri van Breda placed a chillingly calm emergency call. He reported that a masked intruder had brutally attacked his family with an axe. When authorities arrived, they found parents Martin and Teresa and adult son Rudi dead, while teenage daughter Marli barely survived. Henri stood on the lawn, uninjured aside from minor cuts, and covered in blood. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, listeners. Welcome to Case by Case. This is a true crime podcast for educational purposes only. Nothing that I say is intended to be disrespectful or offensive to anyone. I research and ran. If that sounds good to you, let's carry on. Hello, listeners. I would like to give y'all an update on episode 5. Philip Austin as of June or July 2026. I couldn't think of what this year was. Is still in jail. He was denied parole for the fourth time this year. So, England, good job. Keep him in jail because he does not need to get out. Uh Philip is now 56 or 57. It doesn't even matter. He needs to stay in jail. I would like to give a disclaimer for this episode because we are in South Africa. And so if I pronounce anything incorrectly, I completely apologize from the bottom of my heart. Because I know that's gonna happen. Okay, thank you. Episode six, the case of Henry Von Brief. This case takes us to Delenbosch, South Africa, January 27, 2015. The victims are Henry's father, Martin, 54, mother Teresa, 55, brother Rudy, 22, and then he attempted to murder his sister Marley, 16. Henry Christo von Brida was born November 1st, 1994 in Pretoria, South Africa. I hope I said that correctly. His parents were Martin and Teresa. So according to what I read, Martin, not Martin, I'm sorry, Henry and his his whole family, let's just say his whole family were silver spoon, silver platter family. They were rich, wealthy. The um, what is it called? The net worth was 13.6 million euros, which equates to 16 million dollars. So they were a well-off, well-to-do family. The father was uh a businessman and a managing director for the luxury real estate farm, for a luxury real estate firm, and it was an Australian branch of Engel, Engel and Volcker, perhaps. Um, and so and then he had his hand in other things, but that's where that's where the money came from. It came from him basically doing real estate and kind of just understanding other parts of business and money stuff, probably like stocks and all that good stuff. Uh the children attended private schools and they lived in upscale properties. Well, luxury and opulence is the the words I would use to describe what this family had. Okay. So where they lived at the time of the murders, it was called a golf estate, and it had high security. So they basically lived in like their own little area where they had like their own not police, but like security, and so you couldn't just come be there. It was it's we have to invite you, you have to go through security, like you know how that goes. There's a whole situation that has to go into you being here, and that's where they lived, and that's just crazy to me, you know, that's that's insane. But it was a very lovely place that they lived, y'all should look it up. Um, I did not write down the name of the golf estate because I was embarrassed. And I tried, but I'm embarrassed, so I will not even attempt to. But that's where they live. With that being said, money does not mean you can't be going through struggles. It just means that your struggles will not be financial. I say this because I don't know what the motives are. There's theories as to, you know, why he would go ahead and kill his family, but uh nothing is proven. He himself never says why he did it. But if there is something going on, or if there was something going on that he was embarrassed to tell people, those types of things can still happen in a home whether you have all the money in the world or whether you don't. So I don't want it to seem like me glorifying what the family had means that worse things can't be happening because they absolutely 100% can. So aside from Henry, Martin and Teresa had two other children. Their oldest is their son, Rudy, and then they had the baby of the family who was Marley. Henry was the middle child, and so we all know how middle children can be. Um, a middle child is kind of always vying for that attention because they're not the oldest. So the oldest is kind of that uh starter, right? So it's always everything is the first with the oldest. So it's like, oh, you're the first two, you're the first two. So everything is kind of glorified with them. And then the baby is just that, it's the baby. And so although we're glorifying the first with the oldest, the baby is still getting a lot of attention because that's what babies need. But that middle one just kind of gets lost in translation. It's just like, okay, you don't really do anything special, like you're just kind of there. Ugh, go away. And I say that as a middle child, like on my father's side, I'm the middle child, but I'm also the only daughter, so I am better than everybody else, but that's neither here nor there. Neither here nor there. However, um, as a middle child, we're all like I said, we're vying for attention, and so sometimes we do stupid things in order to get attention. Like sometimes we don't necessarily do like uh let's say we're trying to achieve something. Sometimes it's not like, oh, let me get this A plus or something like that. Sometimes it's just like let me go set something on fire. Like, for whatever reason, the attention that we try to get is always negative attention, and I don't know why we do that. Like, I guess it's because as we're like the middle, the first one is sometimes always, you know, the high achiever. And so we're just like, well, I guess we can't be high achieving, so we might as well just be deviant. Uh, I don't know. Our brains don't work well. So, yeah, it is what it is. So the family left South Africa in 2006, and then they went to Perth, Australia for six years. Then they moved from Perth to Queensland on the Sunshine Coast. After moving there, they went back to South Carolina.

unknown 8:32

South Carolina.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

They never lived in South Carolina. I am so sorry. Let me breathe. After being in Queensland, they went to South Africa or back to South Africa in 2014. What is wrong with me? So Henry enrolled in the University of Melbourne. Why he didn't just go back to Australia, I have no idea. But he wouldn't go. He couldn't go back to Australia. He could not attend Melbourne because, you know, he was a murderer. Okay, well, you murder people and then you go to jail. You don't go to college, sir. So there's that. Um, okay, so this is now all the murder stuff, and I have tried so hard to keep this in line, you know, timeline stuff. But at some point, I just was like, okay, you know what? I'm gonna just play it as I read it. I have so many articles open on this computer, and I'm gonna try my best to keep it coherent, but I promise y'all, I have no idea. I don't even know what I wrote down, but we'll go through it. So on January 27th, Henry makes a phone call to emergency dispatch. It was reported that although he was stuttering, he seems calm and unemotional. Uh so I actually listened to the 911 call. I guess we can't really call it a 911 call, but I listened to the emergency dispatch call on YouTube. It was 10 minutes of my life that I cannot get back. And so I'm gonna tell y'all that during the trial, Henry is going to say, or goes on to say, that he feels like there was a disconnect between him and the dispatchers because he has an Australian accent and they were speaking Afrikaans. And so he feels like there was a disconnect there, but also I guess just because the accents are different, um, he just feels like there was like they really weren't understanding him. And I completely agree with him, completely agree. Um, and even if they weren't understanding him, he may not have been understanding them. But when I tell you that whole phone call was disturbing. Because if someone, not if, because there were people dying, but if someone were in trouble, let's say a house was on fire, and you did the fire department to come put this house out, and the time that it took for them all to get on the same page about where this man lived, that house would have burnt to ashes. The dispatcher who answered the phone, he's talking to her. It takes her five minutes to then get another person on the phone. And then as he's attempting to talk to the second person on the phone, the other dispatcher, the original one, keeps interrupting him to answer the second dispatcher. Ma'am, you called her in because you didn't know what the hell was going on. And so why are you talking? So basically, they couldn't find his address. So as he's sitting there trying to give her the address, she's like, That's not an address I can find. And again, I think the reason they couldn't find this damn address is because of where this estate is. So she was like, Are there landmarks near you? What's the closest thing to you? Da-da-da-da-da. And he's like, Well, there's like a gas station. Like, it was insane to listen to. And so then she was like, uh, he was like, I need an ambulance. And so then she was like, Well, what happened? Like, this is towards the end of the call. She's like, So what happened? And he was like, My family and I were attacked with an axe. She said, So you need the police. I need both of them. I need everybody, the whole city military at this point. Because what is happening? It was the most infuriating thing I have ever heard. I was pissed off. I was pissed off after hearing it. It was stupid. But anyway, I don't even, it was, it was horrible. So I will tell y'all a few, a few little parts of the transcript of this stupid phone call. So the dispatcher goes, What's our injuries? Now, okay, I'm also gonna say this. I wrote it exactly as it was said, and so um because English is not their first language, it's Afrikaans, I'm assuming, uh, because that's what he said. It's broken English. So there's that. So the dispatcher says, quote, what sort of injuries is there? End quote. And then Henry goes, he stutters. He says, I guess he has a stutter. So he says, My family and me were attacked by a guy with an axe, end quote, dispatcher, quote, with an axe, unconscious, eh? That's exactly what they say, end quote. Henry, quote, yes, and bleeding from the head, quote. And so at the end, I hear what sounds like pee he, like a very girlish giggle. But after reading the police, not the police, I'm sorry, the court transcript, his defense attorney is saying, he's saying please after that bit. So I don't know. I hear a giggle, like a t. But he's saying he says please. It is very hard to hear. I'm gonna tell y'all that because these other two dispatchers will not shut up. So whatever. Okay, so after all of this, the police get there, right? So Henry goes on to say that while he was uh in the toilet, which when you say that, it doesn't necessarily mean you're on the toilet, it just means you're in the bathroom. So he's in the toilet and a mask. I don't know why I'm getting ready to laugh. The reason why I'm laughing is because when people come up with these stories, like what makes you think somebody's going to believe this? I don't understand. I just don't get it. Anyways, he claims that a masked intruder, and it's like more than one, comes in, and at first they attack Rudy, his older brother, and then Martin comes in to defend Rudy, and so then they attack the father, and so now they're both dead because they were attacked, and then um their bodies were in the bedroom that Rudy and Henry shared together. So the reason why he's able to see these things happen is because he's in the bathroom that's in their room, so he's basically like peeking out the door and can see what's happening. So then the mom comes, she clicks on the light to see what's going on. And so then the attackers go after Teresa. But now, because they are outside the the room, because that's where Teresa's body is found, Henry can no longer see what's going on because they're outside the room, so he doesn't have that visual. And so after Teresa, then they must have attacked Marley because Marley is also found outside that the bedroom, like right outside the the door. Um, so there's three deceased, and then there's Marley, who is not deceased, but her injuries are horrible. So I'm assuming Henry thought she was. That's what I'm assuming, because I've Henry did it, right? We know that. But at the time, you know, whatever. So um, like I said, police come in, and then they realize that everybody, you know, is attacked with an axe. And they realize this because there's an axe on the at the bottom of the stairway. So they're like, this has to be the murder weapon, especially when they're looking at how significant the injuries are, um, because there's the the injuries are pretty bad. Uh, so there is a forensic, forensic pathologist that did the autopsies of all of the bodies. Um, and she goes into uh uh details of what each body kind of suffered and you know, things like that. And I'm not gonna get into all of that because it does go into very in-depth how they died. So it's like what injury occurred, but how that injury led to their death. And so we don't need to, we do not need to hear those gruesome details. But like I said, Marley survived. So the forensic pathologist whose name is Dr. Daphne Anthony. So, from while I'm talking about her, you'll just hear me say Dr. Anthony. So Dr. Anthony described Marley as having defensive wounds on her hands, stating that she quote, uh, fought hard to save her life. Marley had near fatal injuries to her head, neck, and throat. So uh basically what happened was she was kind of hit so hard that, you know, they pretty much severed certain parts of her throat and neck area. Uh so yes, her injuries, she did have to go to the hospital. She had to go through multiple surgeries and all of these things, but fortunately, she did live. However, she was left with retrograde amnesia, which means she can't recall any memories, events, or information from before the injury. So I did look up the exact like things from retrograde amnesia. So she can remember things from like her childhood and stuff. Like, I guess if we were to think about Inside Out, y'all remember that movie? Um, her core memories are still there. Um, but like the actual night that the injury occurred, she cannot remember that at all. So for her, she can't just be like, oh, my brother Henry did it. Because she she doesn't have that in her in her memory bank. So to her, it could have possibly been some masked intruders came in and decided to kill her whole family. That's that's plausible. Um, and it's really hard to think that your brother decided that he was just gonna kill all of y'all, right? Like that's horrible to think of, but it it is where we are. I would also like to circle back to the injuries of everybody. Like I said, everybody's killed, Marley is surviving. Henry, Henry suffered um superficial wounds. So basically, it's like you didn't really suffer anything, but he had some sad wounds. I also saw where it says he just had some scratches and bruises. So there's just kind of some differentiating or differentiating. I don't understand what words I'm trying to say. There are some differences in reports as to what injuries he had, but he said. That um he tried fighting off, he fought off the man who was trying to split his throat. He also goes into like this whole hero act where he was able to get the axe from the man, he was able to hit the man with the axe, he was able to chase the attackers out of the house. He was like, as they were killing his family, they were laughing. And so he has this whole elaborate thing with how everything kind of played out. But once the investigation started, they were like, hold on, there's things that he said that doesn't line up. Like it doesn't make any sense. And um there was a doctor who examined Henry and found that his wounds were self-inflicted, um, there was evidence that said that he waited four hours after you know the murders to call for help. I am suspecting, so this is my own opinion. This is alleged. I am not an investigator, I was not there, I don't know. But if your family has been uh has been cut up, right? So obviously they're bleeding, and you wait for four hours to call anyone, you are making sure that they bleed out. So you're just making sure everybody's dead. That would be the only reason you would wait four hours to call anybody is to ensure the death of everybody. Now, on top of waiting the four hours, again, I don't know if people don't realize cell phone records, phone records, text messages, all of this stuff exists. Okay, they can get it, you can delete it, and they can still pull it. Like it's what it is. So after he chases the intruders out, which is something he says he did. But he also says that after him fighting with the attackers, he falls down the stairs and then goes unconscious. So did you chase them or did you go unconscious? Or when you were chasing them, did you go unconscious? Because then there was just different things. Because if you were chasing them, then went unconscious, how do you know they left the house? They could have still been in there. So what are we what are we doing here, sir? What are we saying? But regardless of of that, when he comes to and he he realizes what I thought happened actually happened. My family were murdered. Um, my, you know, I was stabbed or whatever the case may be. You then call the emergency services. He still did not do that. Instead, he calls his girlfriend. What was their conversation? I don't know. But he calls her. Then he tells people that, oh, well, I called her because she's the only person that I can talk to. Um, and then he goes, and also I couldn't find the emergency numbers. Now I'm not from South Africa, so I can't speak to whether they have a three-digit uh uh help system, right? Of course, in America we have 911. Okay. And uh I don't know if it's everywhere in the UK, but I know in England they have 999, right? So I don't know if South Africa has one of those. However, what I do know is there are he he needed to find the emergency number. And he says he can't do that. But it turns out during the trial, you had people who were testifying because that's what happened. And people testified that as soon as they went into the house, those emergency numbers for you to call were on the refrigerator. Posted clear as day, refrigerator. They had a domestic worker. She was like, Yeah, uh whenever I would come into the house. So she said she came in the house three times a week. She said, Yeah, whenever I would come in. They, you know, they specifically told me, hey, these are the emergency numbers. So I don't know. So I guess like some of the numbers might be people to call, like friends, families, those who they trust. But I guess also for like fires, death, something like that. I'm assuming that those numbers are already on there or also on there. And he was like, I can't find them. So he decided to call his girlfriend, which he also said that this is the reason why it took him so long to call, because he needed to find the numbers. If you couldn't find the number, but you could call your girlfriend, why didn't you just tell your girlfriend to call? Like, but again, if you just woke up, you were unconscious, and now all of a sudden you're seeing all your dead family. Hey, your brain's not working right. I who am I? Who am I to judge you? Okay, I've never been in this circumstance before, but I do know that four hours is a long time. That's a long time, and also I do know that I would never want to be stuck in any emergency situation with you, because damn, we have little kids who handle emergency situations better than you. So there's that. So, anyways, after all of this and they figure all of this out, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, homie is arrested. And then they, like I said, people are testifying left and right, saying he's a liar, this isn't that, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He is sentenced. He is convicted, he is sentenced. And so he was sentenced to three life sentences for the murder of his father, Martin, his mother Teresa, and his brother Rudy. He was sentenced to 15 years for the attempted murder of his sister, Marley, and then he was sentenced to one year for obstruction of justice. The obstruction of justice comes from the fact that he himself cut, or I'm sorry, let me reword that. The obstruction of justice comes from him inflicting the wounds upon himself, making them think he didn't do it. So they went and investigated it elsewhere. Does that make sense? Basically, he it's like a false police report. You know, he made uh I don't know what the words are, but he got a year for that. Um, so he's in jail. And he was 20 at the time of the murders. He was 23 when he got sentenced. Um, yeah. And like I said, he never actually said why he killed his family, which is so odd to me. Not that it's odd that he didn't say, because I guess, like, whatever. But there are people, of course, who are theorizing why he killed his family. And so, of course, the biggest theory is money. If he killed his mom, dad, his brother, and his sister, he would be the main beneficiary of all that his family owned. And so people are like, oh, well, that would be the reason he would kill the family. With Marley surviving, then, you know, now it's just Hazsies, which is still a lot. And I'm thinking as hell, even if it's split between you, Rudy, and Marley, that's still a fucking lot, sir. Like you were just being disgustingly selfish. And then also, if you were enrolled at the University of Melbourne, you could have just gone over there. You could have gone over there, and something tells me your family would have made sure you were set anyway. You wouldn't have wanted for anything for you to have filled the need to make this a financial killing. But again, these are theories because he himself has never said why he murdered his family. Uh, there's also theories because of the fact that the forensic pathologist, Dr. Anthony, said that Rudy seems to have gotten the brunt of the force that there may have been some type of tension or jealousy between Henry and Rudy. That could stem from the fact that Henry was the middle child and Rudy may have been the golden boy. It could have stemmed from like just maybe they had an argument, right? We have seen people kill people over the most ridiculous things. It could be that they were playing Call of Duty and Rudy shot him in the game, and so it set him off. Like, there are just these, you know what I mean? Like, there are just these glitches in people's brains that make them not think things through properly. So with Rudy getting the brunt of things, um something may have happened there. So that's where it's just very hard to kind of come up with a reason for him to have done it. I think if we were like, oh, the brute, you know, brunt of it went towards the father, then of course the would be throwing everywhere, right? But even if you just went to your brother and your mother and father were still alive, you don't inherit anything. So the financial thing kind of goes out the window. The father was just defending Rudy. So it had to be some type of brotherly tension, and everybody else was just kind of in his way. That's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking everybody was in his way. Maybe everybody else was more so like an impulse kill. Whereas with Rudy, because Rudy was laying down when he was killed. So Rudy was Rudy, Rudy was truly defenseless when he was killed because he was just like laying there. But then Martin heard like the struggle and the screams of Rudy. So he came in and defended Rudy. And then that's when he was hit. And then Teresa came in and caught on the light and was like, yo, what is going on? And so then she was attacked. And then I'm assuming maybe Marley came and was just like, I'm hearing a lot of noise. And so then he had to attack Marley. So I kind of feel like the the heat was on Rudy, and then everything else just kind of collapsed on itself. That's my theory. But then what was it with Rudy? That it, I don't know. I don't know. That's so stupid. I don't know. But, anyways, I could keep going on and on saying I don't know forever, so let's just stop doing that right now. Um, this is the case of Henry Von Parita, and I hope I'm saying their name right because I don't know. Um, but I hope that I've satisfied you enough for you to join me in episode seven. Be safe. Ciao.