Kalen Kansley’s family seek justice
Forgiveness is hard to fathom at this stage, say the family of Kalen Kansley, 29, who died in his mother’s arms after being stabbed outside his Albow Gardens home last week.
His sister, Bianca Kansley, says the saddest part for her is that her brother died just two months shy of his 30th birthday, and his two-year-old son is left to grow up without a father.
Her parents were battling to come to terms with her brother’s death, she said, adding that he had been trying to help someone - something she said he was well known for - but his generosity had cost him his life.
According to Ms Kansley, it was just after lunch on Sunday September 24 when her brother saw a fight breaking out between some youngsters in the Albow Gardens council-housing estate.
He wanted to break up the fight and talk to the youngsters, but instead the family watched as he staggered away from the crowd that gathered and collapsed near a staircase at Block D. They rushed downstairs to find him bleeding from a stab wound in his back.
His mother, Nerina, asked her son to hold on until they could get him to a hospital. She held him in the car on the way to Mediclinic Milnerton hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.
Ms Kansley said the father of the boy who stabbed her brother had asked the family for forgiveness, but she said it was “still too fresh”, and she was trying hard “to make sense of it all”.
For the past week, visitors to the family’s home had told of how Mr Kansley had helped them or showed an act of kindness to them, she said.
“We didn’t even know he knew so many people; it’s people we have never seen before, but it just proves the type of person Kalen was.”
Choked with emotion she said: “We just want justice to be served for Kalen, and in that way, we can bring some closure to those who are grieving this loss.”
Ms Kansley said the family had been living in Rugby for the past 10 years and it had become a “horrible place to live”.
“It’s young kids running these streets who have no guidance, they only know how to act like gangsters,” she said.
Milnerton police spokeswoman Captain Nopaya Madyibi said police were investigating a murder case, and a 13-year-old and 17-year-old had been arrested and were due to appear in Cape Town Magistrate’s Court later this week.
Kalen Kansley’s funeral will take place at Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church, 160 Koeberg Road, on Saturday, October 7 at 10am.
