EFFORTPOST The Ellen Pakkies story - A South African Filicide

As Hideo Kojima has taught us, humanity's first cowtools were sticks and rope. It's an easy idea to understand. Some cowtools are meant to keep people away from you, while others are to pull people in.

Some would argue that a mother's love is the strongest bond possible, and even when the umbilical cord is cut, an invisible strand remains. What happens when that strand is put to the test? Sprinkle trauma, pain, drugs, theft, and r*pe into the mix. How much can a strand handle?

More importantly, what happens when a mother kills their own child? All the mothers that I have featured in the past have been rightfully vilified. The woman I'm about to discuss never received hate. Instead, she received overwhelming love from women and men countrywide, and a movie was made about her, positioning her as a hero.

Today, we're going to South Africa to discuss Ellen Pakkies. The images are of Reeva Steenkamp who was killed by Oscar Pistorius. Just keeping things South African.

I tried to build up excitement and intrigue with this introduction but failed. The only saving grace is this meta-commentary that at least you know that I'm self-aware when my writing is shitty.

Buckle up, we're going for the detailed, researched story. You're welcome to point out any flaws.

Tik

When your body wants to release Dopamine, the following occurs. The neural impulse moves along the dopaminergic terminal and meets the dopamine receptor in the limbic system which has synapses (little spaces). A special protein is released by the synapse and it binds to the dopaminergic terminal of a dopamine transmitter.

Dopamine makes you feel good, but all good things must come to an end, so typically the dopamine is reabsorbed. But meth does not want the party to end, so it influences trace amine-associated receptor 1, convinces it to stop letting dopamine in.

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Notes from Reeva!

Synapses are related to sleep

• During sleep, synapses can be cleaned

• When we sleep, synapses decrease in size which allows for lymphatic system to clean the synapses

• During sleep the body prunes irrelevant synapses and neural networks, hence creating space

Once stimulated, a neuron will communicate information about the causative event. The neurons are called sensory neurons. Sensory neurons will send info to neurons in the brain and spinal cord.

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But it doesn't stop there. Meth also encourages the production of more dopamine! Up to ten times more. It feels so good! It acts as an upper, giving you energy and acting as an aphrodisiac.

Of course, there are negative effects to this. Neural damage occurs, and this is irreversible. This can leave the user with memory loss, aggression, and paranoia.

Lavender Hill

Our story takes place in Lavender Hill. Despite the nice name, it is a place of horrors worse than Amityville, some would say.

It was created in the 1970s as a segregated area for Coloreds (mixed-race Malays, not Blacks). With poor access to the CBD and a lack of services, it dilapidated and this continued post-Apartheid.

A lack of policing resulted in the growth of gangs and the proliferation of crime which has come to characterize the township. The crime statistics are shocking, to say the least. Let's cover drugs, which is what this article is about:

>Although statistics for Lavender Hill specifically are difficult to ascertain, crime statistics from the South African Police Service (SAPS) illustrate the prevalence of drug-related crime in the area: between April 2011 and March 2012, Grassy Park (ward 68) recorded 1 810 cases of drug-related crime (SAPS 2012). Local gangs hold the bulk of economic power in the area and recruit many community members by offering financial support. For example, they offer to pay rent or electricity bills in exchange for hiding parcels.

https://ggln.org.za/media/k2/attachments/SoLG.2014-DDP.pdf

Part of the problem is that Lavender Hill is plagued with Tik, which in turn increases other crime rates.

Ellen Pakkies

There used to be far more information on her when the case occurred. However, most of it has been overshadowed by the movie they made about her.

According to her, she was sexually abused as a child. R*pe seems to be a constant theme in her life when she was 17, she was r*ped and had her first child, Abie Pakkies. Shortly after, she married at age 18. She had her second child, Colin. The marriage did not last, and she would go through one more marriage before meeting Ontil, her longstanding husband.

Like many others in Lavender Hill, Abie fell victim to drugs. He got hooked on Tik at age 13, and from then onwards his life became a tragedy. To get money to buy drugs, he would steal everything from Ellen, who owned very little to begin with. She tried to get him to stop, but he basically emptied the house to feed his habit.

This went on for years, with Abie stealing money from his mother and robbing her of her wages. She tried to get him to rehab but that did not work. He was kicked out of the house but he would return banging at the doors and windows begging for money the whole night. To put it mildly, he was a pest.

One day, Ellen had enough. Her son was living in the backroom of the house. She went to visit him, carrying a rope with her. She entered the backroom and found Abie sleeping. He was no threat. Ellen put the rope around his neck and started stranding him. The asphyxiation woke Abie up and he started struggling, likely in shock that his own mother was attempting to murder him. She tightened the rope, asking him why he never listens. He begged for his life, claiming he would listen from then onwards, but this was not enough to quell Ellen's rage. Let's cut to the chase - she killed her son.

Following the incident, she put on her clothes and went to work, much like Chris Watts. However, unlike the family annihilator, Ellen eventually confessed to her boss who then took her to the police station.

Her case was very famous in South Africa and I have vivid memories of reports always painting her in a sympathetic matter, as someone who was pushed to their limits. She eventually got a 3 year suspended sentence. I'm here today to say this is bullshit. This woman is a murderer just like all the others I've previously covered. I feel sympathy for her situation but not for strangling her own son. She did it in such a personal manner, to someone who was sleeping. Frick that.

What are your thoughts? Was Ellen justified? Or is she just a killer?