The Last Words of Rowan du Preez

Book excerpt: In 2012 Angy Peter was bringing up her young children with her husband in Bardale, Mfuleni on the Cape Flats. Angy was an activist, and spent her days collecting evidence for a commission of inquiry into policing that had the chance to change law enforcement across the country's troubled townships. She was vocally against vigilante violence and a go-to person when demanding better services from the police. But when the commission started its hearings, Angy found herself on trial for murdering – necklacing – a young neighbourhood troublemaker, Rowan du Preez. The state's case centred on the accusation Rowan had allegedly made with his dying breath – that Angy had set alight the tyre around his neck. Simone Haysom takes us into the heart of a mystery: was Angy Peter framed by the police for a murder she didn't commit? Or was she a wolf in sheep's clothing who won a young man's trust and then turned on him in the most brutal way? Simone Haysom spent four years meticulously researching this case and the result is a court-room drama interwoven with expert opinion and research into crime and the state of policing in the townships of South Africa.