The Day My Brother Died - 22 October 2017 — A Personal Account

There are moments that divide a life into before and after.

For me, that moment came on 22 October 2017 — the day my brother died.

I’ve written this as both a record and a remembrance. It’s not about the years of aftermath, the courtrooms, or the endless waiting for justice. This is about that day itself how it happened, how it felt, and how it changed everything.

It started like any other Saturday…
I was consumed in my final university project, my last undergraduate submission, determined to finish it before the deadline. My brother was getting ready to go out to a friend’s birthday. His best friend would be driving that night, as they always took turns when they went out.

In our family, saying goodbye always mattered. After losing our Oupa when we were young, we learned never to take a single departure for granted. Even if someone was just popping out to the shop, we said goodbye properly with love. The last words we said to him were “Goodbye.”

That small moment has become one of the few pieces of comfort I can still hold on to.

That night, my boyfriend (now my husband) and I left to house-sit for a friends aupair family. I went to bed around 10 p.m., completely exhausted. Then, at around 1:30 a.m., I woke up suddenly,  my heart pounding, an unexplainable jolt running through me. I checked my phone, told myself I was just unsettled by being in an unfamiliar space, as I am a pretty scared person and tried to go back to sleep.

Later, I learned that at 1:36 a.m., my brother was killed by a speeding Uber driver. Somewhere, somehow, I think I felt it.

That night he had gone to Copper Lakes in Broadacres for a friend’s birthday and later moved to Full Moon to dance and enjoy themselves. At some point, he lost contact with his friends. Their calls didn’t connect, and his calls never went through. Everyone assumed he’d left with a girl, but he hadn’t…

The friends had all left, there had been some tension that night when the girl’s ex appeared, but my brother wasn’t the kind to get involved. He was calm, level-headed, the kind of person who stepped away from drama instead of toward it.

He called an Uber, but the wait was long. Knowing the area like the back of his hand as we grew up here our whole lives and he used to run 10 km in the area almost every day, he decided to walk home instead. He just wanted to get away quietly.

Later, we saw footage of his final moments, walking down the road adjacent to where he died, let me be clear: he was not drunk. The autopsy confirmed that his alcohol levels were below the legal limit and there were no drugs in his system. He was fully alert, fully himself.

He reached a pedestrian crossing at a green light. Two cars came speeding down rhe main road at over 120 km/h in an 80 zone. From tracker data and the footage, we know he tried to turn back, but it was too late…

The first car,  the Uber hit him. His body was thrown 50 metres, his head struck a rock. According to medics, and what I choose to believe, he died instantly.

The second car vanished. We know they were racing. We just couldn’t prove it in courtroom.

The Uber driver was heading to collect a passenger at the Northgate Dome. Witnesses later said that when they passed the scene, there were no police or ambulances, just a cluster of cars and people, apparently other Uber drivers who had come to “help” their friend who had just KILLED my brother.

He had been driving recklessly fast, never even braking before the impact. His car only came to a complete stop about 80 metres after impacting my brother. It was completely written off. He posted a picture of the car on social media that same night, mourning his car while my brother’s body lay just a few metres away.

That image, that inhumanity, will haunt me forever.

I hate him, I hate everything about him and his pathetic life, I wish nothing but pure evil on you Chris Khumalo.

The police and morgue didn’t arrive until around 4 a.m. my brother lay exposed to the cold early morning air, while his phone, ID, and medical cards were right there with him. They could have found us… but they didn’t. For 13 hours, we heard nothing, thirteen hours…

Meanwhile, I woke up Sunday morning with no idea that the world had already changed. I packed up from the house-sit, planning to finish my project. I know my brother had planned to go to a BMW event that day. When he didn’t come home, we just assumed he’d stayed with his best friend.

Later that morning, his best friend phoned to ask if he was home. I said ‘no’. He suggested maybe my brother was with the girl from the night before. None of us thought much of it.

I went with my parents to Hillfox China Mall to get supplies for my project. My boyfriend had already gone home. Everything felt ordinary, painfully, perfectly normal while my brother lay in the morgue.

That afternoon, the best friend called again. He still couldn’t find him. That’s when the panic began.

Our family shares device passwords. I logged into his iPad, but his phone was dead. I posted on Facebook, asking if anyone had seen him. My cousin, who lived three houses away, came to fetch me, and together with his girlfriend, we started searching.

At the police station, they turned us away. “He hasn’t been missing for 48 hours,” they said. If they had checked the records, they would have seen what had already been reported from the accident scene, but they didn’t… they could have saved us from what came next.

We drove toward Full Moon, thinking it was in Muldersdrift. Realising we were lost, we turned back. I was in the back seat when my phone rang, it was my brother’s best friend again. His voice was tight with panic. He asked to speak to my dad and I begged him to talk to me. When he hung up, I knew something terrible was about to happen.
A few minutes later, my dad called. His voice was breaking.
“Lea… come home.”

I begged him to tell me what was going on. Then he said the words that ripped my world apart:
“Ty’s in the morgue.”

I screamed. Everything went cold. My cousin began driving on the side road to get past traffic, to get us back quickly, as we both cried and screamed. His girlfriend tried to comfort us, but there’s no comfort for news like that.

We drove straight back to the police station. My parents arrived just as we did. His friends were waiting outside. The officers said they would only speak to my parents and I.

When I saw my mom, I ran to her. We collapsed together on the ground, crying.

Inside, the three of us held hands and prayed it was some mistake. Hoping they had the wrong family. The description matched him. There was no mistake.

We begged to see him, though the morgue was closed on Sundays. Arrangements were made for us so we didn’t have to wait till Monday.

My pregnant cousin called after seeing my Facebook post. I had to tell her he was gone. I didn’t even think about what that shock could do to her, I just blurted it out ‘he’s dead’, because there was no other way to say it.

His ex-girlfriend overseas sent me voice notes he’d recorded while walking home. I can’t share them for his memory of his friends, but hearing his voice in those final moments is something I will never forget.

My boyfriend, getting bits and pieces of my panicked messages, tried to meet us but kept missing us. Everything was chaos.

My parents and I drove to Krugersdorp Morgue in silence. My cousin and his girlfriend followed behind.

When we got there, the hallway was long and cold, walking down with our heart in our stomach and teary. When they brought him out on the trolley, I couldn’t breathe. I won’t describe what I saw, it would dishonour him, but I held his head and kissed him on the forehead. That was the last time I ever touched my brother. I can only imagine the screamers that echo’d the hallway back to my cousin waiting for us.

After the morgue, we went back to the police station, then home. My cousin lived a few houses away, the family had gathered there, waiting for us.

My cousin and his girlfriend went straight home, and we went to the scene. The road was quiet. My mom found one of his socks still lying there. The other came back with his clothes from the morgue. His shoes were gone… stolen. To take from a dead man’s body is something I will never understand.

My parents couldn’t face anyone, so they dropped me off and went home. Then came the worst part. Telling the rest of our family. Walking to the gate felt like walking through molasses. My boyfriend met me at the gate, it was the first time he’d seen me since I’d heard the news. I fell into his arms, barely able to speak. Inside, the family waited for me to tell them it wasn’t true. I couldn’t though…
“It was him,” I said. “It was really him. He’s gone.”

When the officer came to the house that evening, I joined them. He explained more about what had happened and returned my brother’s belongings which meant to much to us. My mom still plays his voice notes just to hear him like he was still here.

Later that night, I went to see his friends. I knew he would have wanted that. My boyfriend drove me there. I stared out the window the whole way looking into the night sky, begging for it to be a nightmare.

I walked into a room full of his best friends and collapsed into their arms. Everyone looked to me for answers, but I barely had any. I just talked, cried, repeated myself. Anything to fill the silence.

That night, I went back home and climbed into bed with my parents. None of us slept. We talked about him for hours, about how to tell my Ouma, about funeral plans, about nothing and everything. My boyfriend stayed close by, giving us space but never leaving.
For the next week, he was our anchor. He fed us, helped with arrangements, looked after our dog, and quietly held our family together while we tried to remember how to breathe.

That was the day my brother died…

Every moment of it lives inside me — the calls, the drive, the morgue, the silence afterward.

Eight years later, the court case is still ongoing. The man responsible has laughed at us in court, watched videos on his phone so loud in our ears to annoy us, while we waited for proceedings, and even smirked while I read my impact statement. There’s no justice that can match what was taken from us.

My brother was my everything, my first friend, my best friend, my hero, my protector!

Living without him has been the hardest thing I’ll ever do. Watching others with their siblings still breaks me, because I know I had the best and it was stolen in an instant.

There’s a kind of pain that never ends. It changes shape, but it never fades.
Even if justice takes a lifetime, I will keep telling this story because my brother deserves to be remembered, not forgotten.

Ty wasn’t just my brother - he was light.

The kind of person who could walk into any room and shift the energy without even trying. He had this rare, quiet confidence. A wicked sense of humour and a heart that loved deeply and fiercely. He adored his family, lived for his friends, and had this beautiful habit of making sure everyone around him felt seen.

He was disciplined, passionate, and loyal to his core. He pushed me to be better in every way and even now, he still does. His absence has shaped every corner of who I am today.

Eight years later, I still hear his voice in my head when I doubt myself, still imagine his teasing laugh when something ridiculous happens, and still look for signs of him in the smallest things.

He’s everywhere, in the sunsets, in the songs he loved, in the moments that make me stop and breathe.

If you’ve read this far, I want to thank you for holding space for my brother’s story.

For remembering him, even if just for these few minutes, you’ve honoured him too.

Please, drive carefully. Respect the road. Every single decision behind the wheel holds a life in its balance.

Finally If you’re lucky enough to have a sibling, hug them, call them, tell them you love them.

…because you never know when goodbye might be the last word you ever get to say.

Forever my brother. Forever in my heart.

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