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After years of heart-ache and uncertainty she felt a sense of justice when the boy who killed her teenage son was sentenced.
Yet Jorina Pretorius’ relief is tinged with apprehension as the boy’s defence team are planning to appeal the sentence, threatening to destroy the fragile sense of peace she’s only just begun to find.
The Pinetown regional court in KwaZulu-Natal recently sentenced Durban teen Ryleigh Naidoo to five years in jail for the 2022 murder of Jorina’s 15-year-old son, Jayden Glazer.
Naidoo was convicted of killing his schoolmate in a fight over a girl.
The court heard how the two boys, once friends, fell out and started competing for popularity and girls and arguing about whose parents were richer.
Things came to a head after a weapons free fight was arranged after school via a WhatsApp group – but Naidoo brought a steak knife to the meeting and stabbed Jayden in the abdomen, ending his life.
Naidoo is now 18 but he’s been sentenced as a child offender in terms of the Child Justice Act as he committed the murder when he was 16.
Jayden’s mother says the sentencing is cold comfort. “I feel a little bit heartbroken,” she tells YOU.
“I don’t think the five years is enough but now his lawyers want to take the case to the high court to try to reduce it to two years.”
The heartbroken mother describes her son’s killing as a betrayal as Jayden and Naidoo used to be close. “Jayden called him a friend. Friends do fight but they don’t kill each other.”
Naidoo claimed in court testimony that he was being bullied by Jayden and acted in self-defence. “But I feel it was just a personality clash because of the way they were carrying on,” Jorina says. “They were competing for popularity.”
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The day her world came tumbling down is etched in her memory: a frantic rush to the scene, the sight of her beloved son in a pool of blood surrounded by paramedics, the gut-wrenching loss that followed when he was declared dead at RK Khan Hospital in Durban.
Jorina (60) was at home with her husband, Alan Glazer (68), when she received a call informing her her son had been stabbed outside his school, Chosen Independent Studies in Pinetown.
“I didn’t even have shoes on my feet – I panicked and just ran to the scene. The paramedics were there and everyone was gathered around him,” she recalls.
Jayden was in Grade 9 and Naidoo in Grade 10.
“They gave me and my husband sugar water for shock and Naidoo was just sitting across the road,” she says.
During his trial the court heard that after stabbing Jayden, Naidoo walked away from the scene, went home and cleaned the knife before putting it back in the drawer he took it from. Then he went to spend time with his girlfriend.
Jorina says he waited two years to apologise to her but forgiveness remains out of reach for her. “He wrote a letter when he was in the holding cell two years ago, offering his condolences and asking us to forgive him but he never handed it to us – we only received it from his lawyer Clinton Short in December last year,” she says.
“He had so many opportunities to give me that letter before then but he didn’t. Now it’s too late for me to accept the apology.”
Jayden’s absence has left an unfillable void in the Glazers’ home and his dreams of becoming a commercial pilot have been lost along with him.
“He didn’t even get to finish school when he was taken from us,” Jorina says.
“He [Naidoo] put our family through a lot of heartache. None of us have fully come to terms with what happened.”
Jorina says her husband, their older son, Chad (27), and her stepson, Devon (38), are all draped in a heavy cloak of grief. Chad now prefers locking himself in his bedroom while her husband is drowning in depression. “He’d rather sleep,” she says.
Naidoo has spent the past two years confined to his home and during his trial his legal team advocated for the continuation of his house arrest.
In her judgement, Magistrate J Goorie said the court would not impose house arrest or a suspended sentence as it wouldn’t be appropriate for the crime.
The magistrate also called Naidoo cold and calculating. “You did not react timeously and didn’t do what was necessary,” she told him during sentencing.
“The right thing to have done would have been to stop after the stabbing. How do you leave an injured person who you had said was a friend without calling an ambulance or crying out for help?
“Those actions will be perceived as that you didn’t care that you took a knife to attack and afterwards had no compassion and walked away,” she added.
Jorina says facing her son’s killer in court was a trial of its own. “He showed no remorse throughout the trial and I don’t know if the five years will actually rehabilitate him,” she says.
“What made me angrier was the disrespect – every time we were given the time to appear in court he would arrive late with his legal team.”
According to Jorina, the Naidoo family apologised only when she testified that she felt like they weren’t sorry.
“After court they all came up to me saying they wanted to apologise, that they hadn’t wanted to come earlier because they thought I’d be angry at them,” she tells us.
“Yes, I was angry, but if they’d come to me earlier I would’ve accepted their apology. Now I just can’t.”
Nothing they ever do will compensate for the life of her “lovable child”, the grieving mother says. “He was always helping people out in our complex and for pocket money he’d go and wash people’s cars,” she says. “He was a people person and people loved him.”
All she’s left with now is a memorial garden and a table where she displays his pictures.
“I kept all his stuff and it’s so hard,” she sobs.
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She’s also resorted to running a tuck shop from her home, just to keep her mind busy. “Constantly talking about him also helps me to deal with the grief,” she says, her voice cracking.
She wishes the boys could have chosen a better way to settle their conflict and hopes that Naidoo will learn from his mistakes.
“I’m happy that justice is served – now I can finally start grieving for Jayden,” she says.
Jayden was cremated and Jorina still has his ashes because she hasn’t decided where to bury them.
“I’m thinking of putting them in a necklace and carrying him with me wherever I go.
