Sean Newman is a former public relations manager for Lolly Jackson, the subject of this biography.

Peter Piegl is the founding editor of Playboy South Africa.

Karyn Maughan is a legal journalist at eNEWS in Johannesburg.

Lolly Jackson

When Fantasy Becomes Reality

By Sean Newman, Peter Piegl, Karyn Maughan

Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd

Copyright © 2012 Sean Newman, Peter Piegl and Karyn Maughan
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4314-0296-0

Contents

About the Authors,
Cast of Characters,
Part I,
1 Lolly’s Murder,
2 The King of Teaze: Women, Wheels and Poker,
3 Working for the Lolly,
4 Masters and Servants,
5 Breakdown,
6 Final Days,
7 The Aftermath,
8 The Plot Thickens,
9 The Fantasy Unravels,
10 Looting the Spoils: The Estate,
Part II,
11 SARS: Tax and Death,
12 The Racket,
13 Radovan Krejcir,
14 Who Killed Lolly Jackson?,
Part III,
15 The Killing of Ian Jordaan and Mark Andrews,
16 In Closing,
Where Are They Now?,
Acknowledgements,
QR Codes,
Appendices,
In Lolly’s Words,

CHAPTER 1

LOLLY’S MURDER

Monday, 3 May 2010

‘Fuck off!’ Lolly Jackson’s last words to me echoed in my mind. It was a cold evening in May 2010, and I was standing apprehensively on an unfamiliar driveway in Kempton Park. Fine rain gently settled on my skin, and all I could think of were those two curt words. They were spoken in the flush of anger and would be the last exchange to pass between us. Lolly was more than just my employer; he was a man I’d grown to love and respect, and who I’d asked to be my child’s godfather. All that remained now was a shattered corpse that belied the controversial, larger-than-life personality that had birthed an empire. Agonisingly, the truth was taking hold; our King of Teaze was dead.

The night Lolly Jackson died began like any other. I was tucked up warmly in bed and my wife had just finished putting our three-month-old daughter to sleep after her feed. My cellphone rang unexpectedly. Jarred awake, I rolled over, grumbling, and vaguely registered the name on the screen – Imraan Karolia from Eyewitness News. A call from the press during the night was commonplace and I rolled my eyes, thinking that Lolly had been arrested again. The conversation that followed made me wish that had been the case.

Sean: Yes, Imraan?

Imraan: Hi Sean, sorry to disturb you.

Sean: No problem, what’s up?

Imraan: Sean, can you confirm or deny that Lolly Jackson is dead?

His statement sucked the air out of my lungs. Disbelief intermingled with fear and helplessness as I launched out of bed and ran out of the room – searching for a clearer cellphone signal. Maybe I’d heard wrong…

Sean: What? What the hell are you talking about? Imraan, what’s going on?

Imraan: Sean, we’ve had word from multiple sources that Lolly has been killed tonight. Can you confirm or deny this for us?

Sean: Are you sure it’s not a prank?

Imraan: It has come from a few sources and they are all very credible.

Sean: Are you sure? Where?

Imraan: We can’t confirm; that’s why we’re calling you. Apparently he was shot somewhere in Kempton Park, a house.

Sean: Imraan, hold the story! I don’t care how you do it, just hold it. Let me make some calls and then phone me back ASAP. Get me an address, please!

Imraan: I will hold, but we need confirmation from you.

Sean: Get me an address and I’ll go right now. I’ll confirm.

Shaking, I put the phone down and stumbled outside to have a cigarette. I desperately called both of Lolly’s numbers, but they just rang and went to voicemail. Each call brought with it a sense of impending doom; Lolly was never unavailable.

I walked slowly back inside and told my concerned wife that Lolly might be dead. As the words tumbled from my mouth, I grabbed my phone from my pocket and began to search for Ricardo Fabre’s number. He was Teazers’ financial manager and was hard-wired into the goings-on in the business. No doubt he’d dismiss the story as utter nonsense, saying he’d just heard from Lolly and that they’d laughed about getting yet more free mileage over this latest controversy.

Ricardo answered, his voice betraying his own doubts and concerns. He explained he’d heard from our Cape Town partner, Greg Fedele, that something was seriously wrong; that possibly Lolly had been shot but was still alive. I was becoming increasingly anxious. I agreed to touch base shortly after calling Lolly’s attorney, Ian Jordaan who, if anyone, would know the truth. But Ian had no further insight to offer.

I reasoned with myself that there was no possible way Lolly Jackson could be dead. He was too well known and connected to some of the most powerful and feared men in the country. While mulling this over and trying to remain controlled, the phone rang. Not recognising the number, I prepared myself for the onslaught of yet more journalists, but the hysterical voice on the other end of the line caught me off guard: it was Demi – Lolly’s estranged wife.

Sobbing, she asked where her husband was. I told her nothing had been confirmed yet, but she’d be the first person I’d call when I had some facts in hand. At least I now had her cellphone number – this had changed when she and Lolly had separated acrimoniously and he’d cancelled her cellphone contract.

I’d barely put the phone down when an SMS came through from Imraan – it was the one I’d so anxiously been waiting for. It stated simply: ‘Sean, 25 Joan Hunter Avenue, Edleen’. It also had the Sebenza Police Station’s number and ended off with the word ‘hurry’.

Quickly getting dressed and preparing to leave for Kempton Park, I called Ricardo and Lolly’s personal assistant, Robyn Teixeira. Ricardo was en route to Teazers Rivonia to fetch Manoli, Lolly’s son from his marriage to his first wife, Vivian Starkey. Robyn and her husband Manny were packing their son into the car and had made plans to fetch Demi. They were originally going to meet at a pre-arranged spot so that they could go to the crime scene together, but Demi’s car had hit a pothole, forcing her to wait to be collected at a petrol station nearby.

Rushing to the address in a speeding taxi, I replayed the day’s events in my head. I’d woken with a painful ache in my neck. I’d met Ricardo for coffee before work and had told him I needed to see a doctor. Ricardo had said he was going to take time off to sign papers for a loan to buy a restaurant. After roughly a decade of working at Teazers, he’d finally be the captain of his own ship.

My doctor had booked me off for two days so I called Lolly to let him know, but his terse answer betrayed he was in a worse mood than usual. My sickness, along with Ricardo’s ‘absenteeism’, was coming under scrutiny from our capricious boss. Adding to Lolly’s frustration was the dismal cellphone signal. He shouted, ‘Fuck off!’ at the cellphone service provider and ended the call. When he phoned back I tried to explain my situation, but received the same disturbing expletive in return.

Lolly’s cycle of bad moods had begun to intensify. I’ve often wondered whether this was the result of an inner voice alerting him to the fact that his life was in danger or merely due to the stress of his imminent divorce from Demi. After his death, Robyn and I would sit together and reminisce. She said Lolly was acting strangely on the day of his murder: ‘He picked up the phone and called my husband [Manny]. He asked me how my son was doing and that was just totally out of character.’

I found out later that Shaun Russouw – Lolly’s partner at Teazers Durban – had received a similar call that day. After asking about Shaun’s wife and child, Lolly spat, ‘I’ve told the bitch to fuck off’ – an apparent reference to Demi. Lolly’s mood had also become clear to handyman Lacksom Makhalina who had seen a ‘very worried, very stressed’ Lolly repeatedly riding his scooter up and down the driveway of his Kyalami home that last morning.

As the taxi hurtled towards the address Imraan had sent me, I tried to work out why it seemed familiar. On arriving, I stood in the shadows some distance away from the scene, considering whether I should turn around and leave. My trepidation was building – as much as I needed to know the truth, I was terrified of what I might learn. As I took those first tentative steps onto the open driveway, I saw a large man talking to two people near a car. A woman turned, microphone in hand, and I sensed that some terrible truth was about to be revealed. She introduced herself as Mandy Wiener and greeted me by name. I saw her lips move but I couldn’t hear a thing. As I turned to face the authoritative man, who introduced himself as Colonel Eugene Opperman, her words filtered through my mind: ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t tell me it’s my boss,’ I begged, but he confirmed my worst fears. I collapsed on the driveway, crying.

As I got up unsteadily, Mandy approached and asked if I was able to give a comment. I said I would, but needed to gather my composure first. Mandy told me the story was about to break live on air and my body stiffened. I told her we couldn’t do that as Lolly’s family hadn’t yet been informed, but she said it was too late. She offered me her phone (as my battery had finally died) so I could try to contact Demi as I’d promised. I grabbed it and dialled the number, unwittingly giving Mandy direct access to Lolly’s estranged wife.

Demi answered and all I can remember telling her, through body- wracking tears, was that Lolly was dead. I just kept saying ‘sorry’ and ‘he’s dead’. Only the next morning did I realise – when I heard the grief-stricken conversation replayed on Talk Radio 702 – that Mandy, the intrepid reporter, had surreptitiously recorded my end of the conversation with Demi.

I desperately needed a cigarette. I wanted the safety of solitude, but I had a job to do. Lolly had trusted me for a reason, and I felt duty-bound to fulfil my responsibilities, no matter what.

* * *

I was summoned by Colonel Opperman, who said there was a police officer wanting to speak to me in private. I climbed into a silver sedan and noticed a plain-clothes officer sitting with a docket in the driver’s seat. It would later transpire that the man was in fact none other than Gauteng Crime Intelligence boss Major General Khanyisa ‘Joey’ Mabasa.

He began by asking if I knew the deceased, to which I nodded. He then enquired who the victim was. This totally threw me as the police themselves had only moments prior confirmed who it was to me! I told him it was Lolly Jackson. The police officer looked down and noted something in the docket.

His next question completely astonished me: he asked who Lolly Jackson was! All I could do was point to the Teazers’ badge on my shirt pocket, mouth agape in disbelief. The police officer nodded and started to brief me about what I was allowed to say to the press.

I was utterly stunned. A few seconds earlier, the officer had pretended not to know who Lolly was or that he was dead, yet he was well aware that it was my job to talk to the press! Either the man had just experienced an epiphany or I was a pawn in some sort of sick game (I later discovered Lolly had Joey Mabasa’s contact details saved on his cellphone). I listened in a daze as he instructed me not to bad-mouth the police in any way. Under no circumstances was I to talk about the crime or change my commentary to anything other than: ‘We have full faith in the police and the manner in which they are conducting this investigation.’

Angry and confused, I got out of the car just as Ricardo arrived on the scene along with Peter Burner (head of the Sandton Police Reservist Division), Father Keith (police chaplain) and Manoli, looking as pale as he did the day he contracted an infection after his appendix was removed. I embraced the shattered Manoli, then ushered him over to the paramedics who had arrived to assist with trauma counselling.

A screeching wail suddenly cleaved the cold night air. Demi had begun to climb out of Robyn’s car before it had even stopped. She stumbled while running and fell to her knees in the middle of the road. Screaming, ‘Where is my man? What was he doing here?’ She was quickly ushered over to the paramedics to join Manoli. Grief can manifest itself in the strangest ways. Demi’s reaction on arriving at the murder scene seemed a sharp contrast to the story Robyn would later tell me. As Robyn described it, when she and Manny had arrived at the garage to collect Demi, Lolly’s wife had been chatting amiably with the forecourt attendants. But the moment she’d laid eyes on Robyn and Manny, Demi had collapsed in a sobbing heap.

In emotional turmoil, Ricardo and I walked away, not wanting to intrude in family matters. At that moment two men, who would later be closely linked to the murder investigation, arrived: Czech fugitive Radovan Krejcir and security boss and underworld kingpin Cyril Beeka. Ironically, Cyril would himself die in a hail of bullets almost one year later to the day.

After chatting to Radovan and Cyril, Ricardo and I turned back towards the crime scene and saw the door to the house open. From where we were standing, I had a clear view of the interior of the entrance hall, albeit a brief one. The police had congregated near the doorway that led directly into the garage. There were two short steps up to a medium-sized passageway leading to what appeared to be an open-plan lounge. I was immediately struck by the sight of an arched smear of blood on the wall, approximately 60–80 cm in length. All the signs told me that Lolly had been shot while trying to get away and had stumbled down the steps, reaching out for support, but his legs had failed him. With tears welling in my eyes again, I turned away.

The autopsy report would later reveal the exact details of the devastation inflicted on Lolly Jackson’s body. The official cause of death has been cited as ‘multiple bullet wounds’. Lolly was shot twice over the left posterior chest wall which resulted in a fractured rib and a perforated lobe of his left lung. Another bullet entered his left lateral chest wall, perforating his diaphragm and entering his stomach. Two shots were fired into the parietal region of his head – bullet and bone fragments causing additional trauma to his already mortally wounded brain. The sixth shot entered 3 cm in front of Lolly’s left ear. This was executed at close range, resulting in ‘tattooing’ of the skin from the gunpowder. Clearly, this had been the killer’s last – and was intended to ensure his target was stone dead.

Lolly’s shirtless body (the shirt was never found) with his jeans pulled down around his legs would be delivered later to the mortuary. The autopsy would reveal that this was not due to sexual abuse of any sort, so I imagine that his corpse must have been dragged – causing Lolly’s jeans to slip down without his belt breaking. It would later come to light that he’d been living on borrowed time, as forensic pathologist Johannes Steenkamp noted that his heart was enlarged and showed signs of severe cardiac disease. The 53-year-old had been on the brink of heart failure.

Shaking, I walked away from Ricardo and the scene before me, wanting to remember Lolly as the strong man he’d always been.

* * *

Ricardo and I saw Robyn and her family off as she left to take Demi home, and then walked to the top of the driveway. I reiterated that this address was, for some reason, familiar. He suggested that it might have been some project Lolly and I had worked on together, because he didn’t know who stayed there. Prior to receiving the SMS from me, he hadn’t even known the place existed.

Ricardo was on the phone to Lolly’s lawyer, Ian Jordaan, debriefing him, when it suddenly hit me. This was George Smith’s place! – ‘FAT George’, as Lolly had aptly saved him in his phone.

Addicted to crack, George Smith was a petty criminal who was elevated into a world of ego and power after becoming friends with cellmate Radovan Krejcir in 2007. The two ended up in the same prison cells, despite their frequent change of venues, and Radovan saw this as kismet. George became the go-to guy – a man to whom Radovan and Lolly could turn to get things done. This address had appeared at the top of an affidavit he’d written for Lolly while my boss was in jail as a result of the Michael Kalymnios case. (Lolly had been arrested in February 2010 for allegedly trying to extort money from Michael, who was dating a former Teazers’ dancer. George later stated in his affidavit that Michael had offered him money to falsely claim that Lolly was going to hire him to kill Michael.)

As these thoughts went through my mind, Ricardo continued his conversation with Ian. I interrupted and asked him to hand me his phone. After telling Ian what I knew, he argued that it was Michael who lived in Kempton Park while George lived in Kensington, but I stood firm and corrected him and he agreed to check the address in the morning.

By this time, Colonel Opperman was addressing the media gathered on the opposite side of the road from the house, and Ricardo told me to join them and make a statement. To this day I don’t know how I managed to utter a word, let alone string a sentence together.

After mumbling something, I returned to the paramedics to find Manoli, who was insisting on viewing his father’s body. Like Lolly, he had a stubborn streak and a sceptical nature which meant he wouldn’t believe his father was dead until he could verify this for himself. We all desperately tried to persuade him not to do so, but he insisted. Just after midnight, he was escorted inside the house by Father Keith. Ricardo followed Manoli but came out almost immediately. When Manoli emerged, the expression on his face was one of utter horror and devastation. He was clutching a plastic shopping bag containing his father’s bloodied watch, chain and crucifix, as if someone might seize it from him at any moment. I noticed that his knuckles were almost opaque. We all climbed into the car that Peter Burner had reversed into the driveway and solemnly left for Teazers Rivonia. Ricardo and I sat in the back flanking Manoli, who wouldn’t let the shopping bag out of his grasp. It was at this point that I realised the plastic bag was branded with the Pick n Pay logo. The irony was not lost on me – I kept thinking that if Lolly were here, he would have flown into a rage, knowing his most prized possessions were in a shopping bag carrying the brand of the same company that had forced him to close his Bedfordview branch and spawned numerous altercations with its CEO, Sean Summers.

When we arrived at Teazers, the lights were still on inside. The red eyes of the remaining few customers stared back at us, completely oblivious to the horror of the past few hours. The night’s events had taken a heavy toll on us. I quietly excused myself and left for home and its relative safety. I couldn’t stay at Teazers any longer. Lolly had been the heart and soul of this business and without his charismatic presence, it suddenly felt to me as if someone had reached in and ripped the life out of it, reducing it to nothing more than bricks and mortar.

(Continues…)Excerpted from Lolly Jackson by Sean Newman, Peter Piegl, Karyn Maughan. Copyright © 2012 Sean Newman, Peter Piegl and Karyn Maughan. Excerpted by permission of Jacana Media (Pty) Ltd.
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