Sanele Ngwenya, a neighbour, said he heard the pair begging for mercy.
"I came out from my room and heard two male voices screaming at different times from around 5am," said Ngwenya.
He said the men "sounded like they were in a lot of pain".
"They were saying they did not know where the gun was nor did they know where the laptops were kept," he said.
Gideon Buthelezi, another neighbour, said he saw the 30-year-old woman cleaning the shack after the screaming had ended.
"She was clearing the shack and cleaning. She walked out with a blanket soaked in blood
"She was also in the shack during the screams and she obviously knows what happened, that is why she was cleaning the shack," Buthelezi said.
The small shack is situated at the backyard of a seemingly deserted Troyeville property.
Neighbours said the shack was recently erected.
When Sowetan visited the scene, the team found the shack turned upside down with the bed flung to one side.
Two tortured and buried in a shack
Loud screams came out of a backyard shack in Troyeville, Johannesburg, for about five hours.
Long after the cries stopped, police discovered two dead men buried in a shallow grave inside the corrugated iron sheet structure.
Residents of Troyeville yesterday described how they were woken up to agonising screams in a backyard shack where a pair aged 30 and 40, who were allegedly kidnapped by two men, were seemingly tortured for hours before they were eventually killed on Tuesday morning.
Police have since launched a manhunt for the suspects who were still on the run yesterday, after their accomplice, a 30-year-old woman, was arrested.
The woman was allegedly present during the torture and apparently was even tasked with cleaning the shack before police arrived.
The pair was tortured after their captors, who were allegedly known to them, accused them of stealing a firearm and laptops.
Sanele Ngwenya, a neighbour, said he heard the pair begging for mercy.
"I came out from my room and heard two male voices screaming at different times from around 5am," said Ngwenya.
He said the men "sounded like they were in a lot of pain".
"They were saying they did not know where the gun was nor did they know where the laptops were kept," he said.
Gideon Buthelezi, another neighbour, said he saw the 30-year-old woman cleaning the shack after the screaming had ended.
"She was clearing the shack and cleaning. She walked out with a blanket soaked in blood
"She was also in the shack during the screams and she obviously knows what happened, that is why she was cleaning the shack," Buthelezi said.
The small shack is situated at the backyard of a seemingly deserted Troyeville property.
Neighbours said the shack was recently erected.
When Sowetan visited the scene, the team found the shack turned upside down with the bed flung to one side.
A neighbour, who asked not to be named, said he was one of the first people at the scene. He said he saw the two suspects running from the scene with a crowbar.
"When the police dug up those guys they found them with their legs and hands bound. There was no way they could have survived that beating," he said.
Police spokesperson Captain Moscow Shihambe said the 30-year-old female suspect went to the Jeppe police station to report that two men were killed and buried in a shack.
Shihambe said the woman was arrested after she gave police inconsistent versions of events during questioning.
"She gave police different versions before she later admitted that she was also inside the shack when the murders took place.
"She was arrested while the bodies of the two men were taken to a government mortuary," Shihambe said.
makhethat@sowetan.co.za