Alison Botha - Complete

In 1994, Alison Bertha was brutally attacked and raped by two men in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. They strangled her, stabbed her abdomen 30 times, and slit her throat 16 times. Despite her injuries, Alison managed to survive and leave clues to identify her attackers. She was eventually found by a veterinarian student and taken to the hospital. The attackers were arrested but released on bail. The podcast hosts discuss the racial and social context of the time and how rape was not openly discussed. Alison's will to live and survive is seen as remarkable. Welcome to Serials and Schemes. I'm Sam. And I'm Sandy. This is a true crime and conspiracy podcast. Our podcast is intended for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised. Hello and welcome back to Serials and Schemes. I'm Sandy. I'm Sam. And today we're doing something a little bit different, but Sam is going to be telling us a story while we're at it. All right. Do you think she's dead? These are the words that Alison Bertha, 27 years old, thought would be the last she would hear before she died. True to warning, please note that this case talks of rape, blood, and gore. If you're sensitive to these subjects or have a weak stomach, please feel free to skip this week's case. Alison Bertha, born September 22, 1967, in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. From age 10, she lives with her mum and older brother, Neil, after her parents divorced. She attended Collegiate Girls High School in Port Elizabeth, graduating as head girl. After finishing high school, Alison traveled and worked for a few years, then returned to South Africa and enrolled in Wilmington University's Business Administration Program. She also attended a number of other universities in South Africa and USA. Alison's life changed on the 18th of December, 1994. After a night out with friends, 27-year-old Alison Bertha had just parked her car outside her apartment in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, when a man with a knife forced his way inside her vehicle. He held the knife to Alison's throat and told her to move over or he'd kill her. Alison stayed calm so as not to anger the man. Alison told the man that he could take the car, no questions asked, if he could just drop her off somewhere. The man said no and stopped to pick up his friend. Alison could see the friend's eyes through the rear-vision mirror and she knew this wasn't just a simple robbery. The men drove Alison to a bushy, deserted area on the outskirts of Port Elizabeth. One of the men asked her if she was going to fight them, to which she said no. Alison believed she could get through the rape. She said, I can remove myself from the situation, I can get through rape. And you do see that with a lot of rape victims. They do say that they are able to sort of... It's fight or flight, you're either going to fight them or you're just going to go, I just have to pull into myself and just... But it's not even just fight or flight, but survival mode. Yeah, 100%. Like you look at your surroundings and go, am I going to survive this? If I fight, I'm not going to survive it. She knows he's got a knife, you know there's... Yeah, yeah, perfect. Okay, yeah. But they hadn't planned to only rape her. They brutally raped Alison in the dirt on the side of the road. These two guys, just two weeks prior to this event, had done the exact same thing to another young woman. When they had let this young, pregnant girl go, they had told her not to go to the police, but of course she did. She actually was driving away from the ordeal, and a cop car was driving in the opposite direction, and she pulled back, literally she told them as it happened almost, you know. That is crazy. So those two men were actually arrested and promptly released on the providence that they returned to court in a month's time. So this was literally exactly two weeks prior. Sorry, what year did you say this was again? 1994. Oh wow. 1994. Oh wow, that was like on the... That's like the craziest time for that kind of thing to happen as well. It was also around that time that they weren't... Like rape wasn't talked about back then. It was a kind of a, you keep that to yourself. But like racially, it was probably like a very crazy time in South Africa. Yeah. And before, like the nineties in general, from what I understand in South Africa, it was... Yeah. A crazy time to be white or black, to be honest. Yeah. Well, these guys were both white and so was Alison. Wow, I was not expecting that. Yeah. And this is not a racial situation, but what would prompt me to say that is, like I said, the timeframe for this would have happened. And I would have thought like maybe these were people of colour because at that time there was a lot of those kind of racially motivated attacks happening. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So because of that, so they'd been arrested, let out the next day, I believe. That makes more sense why they let out the next day. Yeah. Yeah. There it is. There it is. But this time they didn't want to leave witnesses. So after they raped Alison, they strangled her. And after a while of strangling her, she wasn't dying. So one of the men got a knife and proceeded to stab Alison in the abdomen at least 30 times. Oh, God. So she was sort of unconscious through, like she wouldn't have felt a lot of that at the time. She was unconscious from the strangling. But, you know, she came to. So they thought they'd killed her. I mean, any of us would think 30 stabs to the stomach. And they weren't just like that. Yeah. There was triangulation. Yeah. A mix of that. You'd think she's out. She's out. But they saw her foot twitch and they were like, no, no, she ain't dead. So they slit her throat 16 times. So she must have been coming in and out of consciousness because Alison recalls that all she could see was an arm moving above her face, like moving left and right over and over, and she could hear a wet sound. I mean, it was the sound of her flesh being slashed open. That is fucked. Yeah. That is fucked. So at this point, one of the men asked, do you think she's dead? And the other replied, no one can survive that. And in their defense, I mean, not in their defense, but I would go with that. I would say that same thing. And not only us saying it, not only them saying it, Alison was like, I'm dead. Yeah. That's it. As they walked away, they called each other by their first names and Alison heard them. She knew she had to leave a clue as to who had done it because she knew she was about to die. So she, like, scrawled their names in the dirt next to her and then underneath that wrote, I love mum. And that was her. Yeah. So she's like, you know, at least I can help other people. So their names were Franz Du Toit and Thien Kruger. Alison lay in the dirt with broken glass all around. It was just sad. So she lay there just waiting to die. Yeah. And after a little while, when she doesn't die, she figures, no, try and make it out of here. Let's see what happens. So she started to crawl, but all her intestines were falling out of her body. Yeah. Is that graphic? It's just, like, apart from graphic, it's a crazy thing. It's a woman's will to live. Yeah. Like, her survival instinct is obviously insane. Yeah. Like, it has to be in vain for that. Alison started to crawl, but all her intestines were falling out of her body. So what she heard, she must have been going in and out of consciousness even when they're stabbing her in the abdomen Because at one point she hears with Franz, he says, I'm going to destroy her reproductive organs. Like, he is literally trying to. Why? What the fuck? You're trying to kill her. Who cares about her reproductive organs? Sorry. It's obviously not funny, but it's very specific. Yeah. I wonder if it's to do with the, because the girl that they let out two weeks prior was pregnant. So he's like, nah, you're out. I don't want your reproductive organs. They're busy right now. Yeah. Wait, what? That is so confusing. I don't know. But this is just kind of what he tips me off that, like, these guys are killing her, like, hurting her for sport. Like, there's no actual objective. Yeah. So anyway, she grabs the shirt that the attackers had torn off her and wraps it around her torso to keep her organs inside. So she stands up to walk to the road, but all the muscles in her throat have been slashed. So her head just flops right back. And, again, at that point, I'm just like, I'm not supposed to live. Like, I literally just lay down. I just, I wouldn't have survived this. I did, I mean, 15 times. Yeah. I mean, look at me. Yeah. Cut all of the muscles. So she was, I mean, half decapitated. Oh, my God. Yeah. So. I needed a trigger warning for the fucking time. Oh, my God. So head flops back. So she has to take her, so she's got one hand holding her torso, other hand holding her head on. And so she walks, she walks up to the road. And when she reached the road, she collapsed along the white line in the middle. She's like, someone's going to see me there. If I'm off to the side, they may not see me. And this is, like, early hours of the morning. So it's not a busy road, not a busy area. And so, sorry, but, like, is this 5 and 10? So that's, so, yeah, so when they, sorry, I should have actually said that back then. But, so when he says, no one can survive that, they get in a car and leave. Okay. They're gone. Yeah. They just left her there to die, which thankfully they did. Yeah. Because had they not, she wouldn't have survived. Yeah. So she gets up to the road. She collapses on the white line in hopes that this is the best position to attract the attention of any motorists driving past. Not long after her doing that, a veterinarian student named Tian saw blood. And so he said he just saw blood on the road. And he's like, it was thick blood. And then he sort of followed it with his eyes and then saw a naked elephant lying in the middle of the road. So he stopped. I have read that she said another car sort of went around her and kept driving. And I mean, I said that to my husband. He was like, that's so, that's so sick. And I'm like, well, actually, if I was driving down the road and I saw a body laying in the middle, I would honestly keep driving. Because what else is out there? There could be something, that could be a setup. There could be nothing wrong with her. And they want to attack you. And to be honest, that's exactly what I want to say. Like in South Africa. Yes. This is where I'm from. So like, I feel like I'm equipped to comment on this. But like, you'll be in South Africa and you'll be sitting at the traffic lights and there is someone there with what looks like an emaciated leg, an arm, and they're like begging for money. And then it's 6 o'clock to 5 p.m. and they get up and they're literally just walking off. Yes. And so. And a lot of these times, like these homeless people, or just general people who are parading in front of people on the road, will actually accost a lot of people in their cars and hijack. Yes. And it's often why in South Africa they say you never ever come to a full stop when you're driving. Yes. That's literally why. Yes. So I understand what you're saying. Yes. At the same time though, I would have called in. Yes. Called in and gone, there's someone lying in the middle of the road. I'm going to keep driving. But just so you know, you should go and check it out. So anyway, first car drives past. Veterinarian student. He's on holiday in Port Elizabeth from, I can't remember where else. Somewhere else in South Africa. And he pulls over. He gets down with her. He's got a friend in the car. So the friend in the car calls the ambulance. And Tian is talking to Allison. He actually gets down there and he tucks. She's got an exposed thyroid. He didn't realize what it was, but it was sort of like hanging out. So he tucks it back into her neck. And then just keeps talking to her. Took, straight away took the shirt off of himself and applied pressure to her neck wound. Friends call in the police. And Tian just kept talking to Allison. And Allison's like, what's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? And Allison gestured to her abdomen. So Tian hasn't even looked at that. He's just like, you know, eyes on what's happening. And Allison's like, what's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? 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