Identity
Person No.
32225
Service No.
88317177PF
Last Name
First Name
Willem Adriaan
Initials
W A
Date of Birth
Unknown
Est. Birth Year
Age at Death
27
Death Record
Date of Death
Cause code
SHOT 546
Shot
Cause of Death
Lieutenant Sibusiso Madubela went on a murder rampage at 1 South African Infantry Battalion because of a salary problem, which he caused by himself for being Absent Without Leave (AWOL), and systematically started shooting serving members and civilian employees with his R4 Assault Rifle. His rampage came to an abrupt end when he was intercepted and shot dead by Lieutenant Anton Otto and Warrant Officer Class I Aldo Mattheus (who was also wounded in the fire-fight) while on his way back to the Unit Armoury to replenish his ammunition. Seven SANDF members and one female civilian employee were killed, and twelve SANDF members were wounded, one of them critically
Military Service
Branch
Army
Rank
Sergeant
Unit
Unknown
Defence Force
SANDF 1,025
South African National Defence Force
Location
Country
Locality
Cemetery
Grave Reference
Unit History
Role at time of death
Infantry (Mechanised)
Status
Permanent Force (Regular)
Part of
Listed under South African Army Infantry (Mechanised) (Regular) in the SA Army Units navbox.
Notes
No additional information known at this time
Research notes
Col (rt) Graham du Toit Last Post 16 Sep 2026: 88317177PF Sergeant Willem Adriaan Nell, killed in the same rampage, age 27. CauseDeath clarified (see Coetzer 29807 note). Exact match otherwise.
25 Sep 2026, Unit2 service-branch sweep: the stored Secondary Unit "Army" was CLEARED as a duplicate. It was not a sub-unit, it was a service-branch word repeating what the Branch column already says. Secondary Unit is for sub-units -- a company, a squadron, a commando -- and this record's branch of service is unchanged at "Army".
Citations
Unknown
External References
-
Col (rt) Graham du Toit Last Post
Graham Last Post 16 Sep 2026
- South African War Graves Project open source ↗
Stories
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Dedications
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