Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. This is a lifelong illness and can be characterised by thoughts that seem out of touch with reality, disorganised speech or behaviour, and decreased interest in daily activities.
Phindile Joseph Ntshongwana, a former Blue Bulls rugby player was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2009. In 2011 he violently hacked four people to death with an axe, decapitating two of them. Two other victims managed to escape death.
Ntshongwana came from a perfectly normal family and had a five-year-old son at the time of arrest. It would seem that he just woke up one day and started killing people for no apparent reason. He wandered the streets of Durban and when he came across a suitable victim walking alone he would stop his car, jump out, and start hacking.
As with many cases, these murders might have been prevented. In November 2010, one of the surviving victims gave the vehicle registration to the police, and they went to his house, he was not there at the time and that was it. A woman who was abducted and raped by Ntshongwana multiple times managed to escape from his home taking with her his ID book and a slip with his address on it. This information was given to the police and again they went to his house and couldn’t locate Ntshongwana. He was supposedly a violent criminal and the police couldn’t go back to his house?
Only after four people were murdered, within days of each other was a task team formed and the massive Ntshongwana was soon arrested.
Ntshongwana pleaded not guilty to all counts, claiming to have no recollection of the crimes he committed and blaming his mental illness for his violent attacks.
After being evaluated by a panel of expert psychiatrists Ntshongwana was found competent to stand trial. After the lengthy trial, he was found guilty on all charges. This conviction has been appealed unsuccessfully.
This extremely fascinating but sad illness is unfortunately not very rare and is expected to affect one out of 100 people. However, most people with schizophrenia are not dangerous and they are more likely to become victims due to this illness.
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