A South African woman who endured abduction, disembowelment, rape, and near decapitation has authored a book recounting her harrowing experience.
At just 27, Alison Botha was subjected to a brutal attack that left her clinging to her own intestines while her partially severed head “flopped backwards, almost resting between \[her] shoulder blades.”
The shocking assault occurred on December 18, 1994, after Alison had spent the evening with friends. As she drove home to her apartment in Port Elizabeth, she was unaware of the nightmare that awaited her.
Alison had just parked her car and was reaching for her laundry on the passenger seat when her nightmare began.
She recalled being paralyzed with fear as a blond man forced his way into her vehicle.
The man, Frans Du Toit—son of a police officer—threatened to kill her. Though he claimed he didn’t intend to harm her, he said he needed the car “for an hour.”
In a desperate bid to stay alive, Alison offered him the car. But, as revealed in the true crime podcast Morbid, which draws from her memoir I Have Life: Alison’s Journey, he chillingly insisted he “wanted company.”
![Alison Botha was just 27 when she was subjected to a sickening attack in South Africa that left her having to hold onto her intestines as her partially-decapitated head 'flopped backwards and almost rested between [her] shoulder blades'](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2025/05/09/17/98220533-14695483-Alison_Botha_was_just_27_when_she_was_subjected_to_a_sickening_a-a-23_1746807912394.jpg)
At just 27 years old, Alison Botha endured a horrific attack in South Africa that left her clutching her intestines while her partially severed head “flopped backwards, almost resting between \[her] shoulder blades.”
On December 18, 1994, after a night out with friends, Alison Botha—then working as an insurance broker—drove back to her apartment in Port Elizabeth, unaware that her life was about to change forever.
In 1995, both attackers were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Pictured: Theuns Kruger, one of the perpetrators.
Pictured: I Have Life, the powerful memoir by Alison Botha detailing her survival and journey to recovery.
After driving a distance from town, Du Toit passed a group of people twice, scanning the crowd for one person—Theuns Kruger.
Kruger, a short man dressed entirely in black, approached the car, opened the driver’s side door, and climbed in.
Du Toit, who had introduced himself to Alison under the false name “Clinton,” shifted his seat forward as Kruger entered, casually introducing Alison—also under a pseudonym—as his friend “Susan.”
The drive to a remote suburb outside Port Elizabeth was eerily quiet, until Du Toit broke the silence, noting, “Theuns doesn’t speak good English.”
As they reached a secluded, wooded area, Du Toit pulled off the road and parked on the sand.
Kruger got out, and “Clinton” proceeded to rape Alison.
Kruger began to assault her as well, but suddenly stopped, exclaiming, “No, I can’t do this!” In the process, he slipped and shouted “Frans,” unintentionally revealing Du Toit’s real name—something Alison would not forget.
Sensing her intention to report them, Du Toit warned, “If we take you into town now, you’ll go to the police.”
Then came a chilling question from Du Toit: “What do you think Oom Nick would want us to do with her?”
“Oom Nick,” an Afrikaans term referring to Satan, signaled something far more sinister.
Kruger replied coldly: “I think he wants us to kill her.”
In recognition of her extraordinary bravery, Alison was honored with the prestigious Rotary Paul Harris Award for demonstrating “Courage Beyond the Norm.”
Pictured: Alison signing her memoir, I Have Life
On the night of December 18, 1994, Alison Botha’s life changed forever. After a night out with friends in Port Elizabeth, she was abducted by Frans Du Toit, who later picked up his accomplice, Theuns Kruger. The two men forced Alison to strip, removed her rings, and Du Toit strangled her until she lost consciousness—apologizing to her just before she blacked out.
Alison awoke in a rubbish-strewn clearing, only to see a man’s arm slashing across her throat. She would later recall in her book the terrifying moment she could “hear the flesh slit.” Her throat had been cut 16 times—nearly decapitating her.
As she lay motionless, pretending to be dead, she heard one attacker ask, “Is she dead?” to which the other replied, “No one can survive that.” But Alison did.
Summoning extraordinary strength, she scrawled their names in the sand—along with the words “I love mom”—and crawled to the road, her intestines spilling from a deep abdominal wound. “My head had flopped backwards and almost rested between my shoulder blades,” she later wrote. “I expected to feel something, but was completely taken aback when my hand disappeared inside me.”
With one hand holding her split neck and the other her stomach, she lay across the road to force passing cars to stop. The first swerved away. But finally, at 2:45 a.m., a woman and a young vet named Tiaan Eilerd found her.
Eilerd was stunned she was still alive, describing her as looking like a “creature out of a Dickens novel.” Alison’s internal organs had been stabbed, and the attackers had attempted to mutilate her reproductive system—yet she would go on to have two children.
After extensive surgery and time in ICU, the truth about her assailants emerged: both Du Toit and Kruger were already out on bail for rape and identified as Satanists. In 1995, they pleaded guilty to rape, kidnapping, and attempted murder, receiving life sentences without parole.
Years later, when a law change threatened to free lifers like them, Alison campaigned fiercely to keep such criminals behind bars. But in July 2023, after just 28 years, Du Toit and Kruger were granted parole—without Alison being notified.
On Facebook, she wrote: “The day I hoped and prayed would never come… I’m hoping I’ll never find out”—but now I know.”
Despite everything, Alison has transformed her trauma into a message of strength. Through her memoir I Have Life and the 2016 documentary Alison, she’s told her story to audiences around the world, encouraging others with her mantra of survival: attitude, belief, and choice.
For her extraordinary courage, she received the Rotary Paul Harris Award for “Courage Beyond the Norm,” Femina magazine’s Woman of Courage award, and was named Port Elizabeth’s Citizen of the Year.
Speaking about the film of her life, she said:
“I’ve always hoped that sharing my journey would give others hope. To see my story on screen means more people will understand the power of choice—and might choose to triumph over life’s hardships.”
