A six-year-old girl is the sole survivor of a devastating fire that has killed her parents and two siblings in Kalkfontein on Tuesday.
Jerome Duimpies, 39, his common-law wife Nikita de Villiers, 25, and their two children, one-year-old Jade and Jerovia de Villiers, nine, had been fast asleep in their three-bedroom Wendy house when the fire broke out just after 2am in Elizabeth Street.
Six-year-old Cassidy de Villiers survived as she was sleeping over at a friend’s home on the same property.
BRUTAL DEATHS: Jerome, Nikita, Jade and Jerovia
Nikita’s heartbroken mother, Thelma Hendricks, 45, explains: “Just after 2am, I heard faint screams coming from the Wendy house in the yard.
“As I came out of my house, I just saw these bright red flames. Then I heard Nikita’s voice.
“Now each time when I close my eyes, I hear her screams and the tears start to fall.
“She kept calling: ‘Mammie!’ She screamed: ‘Thelma, help my asseblief.’
“She shouted this three times in desperation, but no one could enter the house.
“The fire was too much, it was too strong,” the mother cries.
DESPAIR: Mom Thelma Hendricks
Thelma says it’s a miracle that Cassidy’s life was spared as she never sleeps out.
“God has a purpose and reason for Cassidy’s life because it was her first sleepover,” the granny says.
She says Cassidy and Jerovia attended Irista Primary School.
Nikita’s aunt, Bianca Claasen, tells the Daily Voice that the couple had been together for 11 years and that the family had been burnt beyond recognition.
Nikita worked at a car wash while Jerome was unemployed.
“Jerome worked as a caretaker a year ago at a school in Durbanville, but he was involved in a car accident which left him with head injuries and he was never the same again after that,” she says.
Charred remains of Jerome Duimpies and Nikita de Villiers’ Kalkfontein home. Video: Brendan Magaar
“They were very loving and always had a smile on their faces.
“We will have to wait for the DNA results before we can go ahead with the funeral arrangements.”
The family says they do not know the cause of the fire.
Jerome Carelse, the City’s Fire and Rescue Services spokesperson, says the incident has been handed over to the police’s forensic department for investigation.