'My father's death stripped me bare' - Mark Minnie's son

24 August 2018 - 16:00
By Michael Kimberley
The children of former Port Elizabeth detective Mark Minnie have accepted his decision to end his life but do not see it as a cowardly act. His memorial service was held at the Dutch Reformed PE West church hall in Newton Park on Friday.
Image: Eugene Coetzee/The Herald The children of former Port Elizabeth detective Mark Minnie have accepted his decision to end his life but do not see it as a cowardly act. His memorial service was held at the Dutch Reformed PE West church hall in Newton Park on Friday.

“I have never felt so much pain. You were the rock we stood on‚” said the son of former detective and author of The Lost Boys of Bird Island‚ Mark Minnie.

Mark junior was speaking at Minnie’s memorial service held on Friday in the Dutch Reformed Church hall in Newton Park‚ Port Elizabeth.

He told about 80 friends and family who had packed the hall that he felt as if he had been stripped bare by the death of his father.

Minnie’s daughter‚ Brooklyn‚ also gave a moving eulogy‚ saying her father had been “brave‚ loving and crazy”.

The body of Minnie‚ 58‚ who wrote book about an alleged paedophile ring involving top-ranking apartheid-era Cabinet members with former journalist Chris Steyn‚ was found last Monday night at a friend’s farm in Theescombe.

He had a gunshot wound to his head and a firearm was found lying next to his body.