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HORRIFIC INCIDENT: 11-hour ordeal of student gang-raped, stabbed and beaten to death

gang raped

HORRIFIC INCIDENT: 11-hour ordeal of student gang-raped, stabbed and beaten to death

A new video chronicles the harrowing 11-hour journey Hannah Cornelius’ attackers put her to when she was carjacked at knifepoint and slain.

Hannah, 21, was in a quiet region of Stellenbosch, South Africa, with her friend Cheslin Marsh when their car was stopped by a “pack of wolves” group who held them up at knifepoint in May 2017.

The criminals kidnapped the two and drove them about for hours before nearly killing Cheslin and dumping his body.

The gang then gang-raped Hannah many times, stabbed her in the neck, and dumped a 2ft boulder on her head.

Nashville Julius, 29, Geraldo Parsons, 27, Eben Van Niekerk, 28, and Vernon Witbooi, the heinous murders, showed no remorse when they were sentenced to life in prison in 2018.

Five years later, a new documentary sheds light on the circumstances leading up to Hannah’s terrible death and how her family battled to come to grips with her suffering.

Hannah’s mother, Anna, drowned exactly a year after the student’s murder while taking her usual swim, The Sun reported. Her bruised corpse was discovered in shallow waters near Cape Town.

Hannah’s father, Willem, described the family’s reaction to his daughter’s death as “beyond sad,” adding that his wife “walked into the water and didn’t return.”

“I feel our family perished with Hannah,” he continued.

Anna’s death was considered a fatal accident, and while Willem stated that he did not believe his wife planned to kill herself, he also stated that she lacked the physical and emotional fortitude to deal with her daughter’s horrific killing.

Hannah and Cheslin’s night of horror began on May 27, 2017, when they were returning home from a night out.

Hannah gave Cheslin a ride home, but while the two were parked, CCTV caught the moment the four-man group surrounded the car.

They used a screwdriver and a flick knife to push Cheslin into the rear and then the boot, while Hannah was squeezed between the two front seats.

“I kept urging her, basically, to keep calm the whole time…everything is going to be good,” Cheslin stated during the new documentary.The group was captured on CCTV yet again when they went to a local gas station to withdraw money from a cash machine using Cheslin’s card, but were given the incorrect pin.

During a police interview, Witbooi described Hannah as “terrified” and “just looking out in front of her.”

The cold-blooded assassins even gave her a glimpse of hope, saying they wanted to take them both home – but the student would never see her loved ones again.

Cheslin was pummelling with bricks and left for dead after being driven to a distant location, but amazingly survived the attack.

He stated: “They were leading me into the bushes…and then they instructed me to rest my head on a piece of brick, and that’s when I realised these individuals were going to end my life.

“And while I laid on the brick, I closed my eyes and prayed, asking the Lord for forgiveness for all I had done in this life.

“Because I knew I was going to another one and I didn’t want to go.”

Cheslin awakened from the violent onslaught half deaf and unsure if Hannah was dead or alive.

Hannah had really been transported to a rural road, where the group said they intended to leave her alive until she began to resist and was stabbed in the neck.

During the trial, Parsons acknowledged to being the first to rape Hannah and that they believed they had killed Cheslin.

According to Times Live, he said in court: “She had no desire to crawl out of the boot. She was clutching the automobile. She began to panic.

“Eben approached her and stabbed her.”

In order to live, Hannah’s family friends think she would have tried to comply with her assassins’ desires and even empathise with them.

Following Hannah’s murder, the guys went on a horrific crime spree, pursuing a woman heading to work in neighbouring Kraaifontein and taking her purse and phone.

Following a high-speed police chase when Hannah’s automobile was seen by undercover policemen, the gang was apprehended.

Following the trial in Cape Town High Court, her callous killers were sentenced to a total of 358 years in prison, with three out of four facing life terms.