Male model killed trying to protect fiancee
By Murray Williams

One of South Africa's foremost male models was gunned down in his Cape Town home this week while protecting his fiancee, also a top fashion model, from armed intruders.

Joe Colby, 40, a giant of the local modelling circuit and famed for his muscular, bronzed good looks and beach volleyball exploits, was fatally wounded on Tuesday during an apparent robbery attempt at the Sea Point flat he shared with fiancee, Angelique van der Byl, 31. He was shot four times.

According to friends at his memorial service, which was held in Wynberg on Saturday, he died saving Van der Byl's life.

By Saturday, police were hot on the trail of two of his three alleged murderers, who are believed to be headed for Mossel Bay in a silver Mercedes Benz.

Leading the posse in pursuit is Inspector Paul Hendrikse of the Serious and Violent Crimes Unit.

On Tuesday, the couple returned home at 11.30pm. No sooner had they entered their flat than three men appeared at the unlocked security door. What happened next is unclear, but Colby apparently lunged at the armed men, tackling them outside the flat to keep them away from Van der Byl, who slammed the door shut.

Four gunshots rang out in rapid succession and the gunmen fled. One of the men, wounded in the fray, ran upstairs in apparent confusion and sprang to freedom from the first floor.

Finding Colby wounded, Van der Byl covered him with a blanket as paramedics raced to the scene. But he had lost too much blood and died at Somerset hospital in Green Point.

After just 48 hours of investigations, a Cape Town magistrate signed warrants of arrest for two men, Ronald John Kampasa, 32, and a co-accused known only as "Attie". Both men are from Bonteheuwel.

Initially, it was suggested that Colby's killers had mistaken him for someone else, possibly someone with links to the drug trade, but police believe this unlikely.

Colby, born Joseph Skarbowski in the United States, led a typically exotic lifestyle as he was photographed across America, Europe, the Far East and Australasia. But for the past 13 years he has spent most of his time in Cape Town.

He met his dark-haired Cape Town beauty in Munich, Germany, and the pair got engaged in 1997.

News of Colby's murder rocked the fashion world, whose beautiful men and women flocked to the memorial service at St Dominic's chapel at Springfield Convent on Saturday.

Exquisitely clad colleagues and friends packed the stone church to listen to eulogies to the man they remembered as a consummate professional and giant-hearted friend. Many others remembered him as Camps Bay's bronzed, musclebound beach volleyballer who was blessed with rugged good looks. A beach volleyball and a dish filled with beach sand lay amid the wreaths on the chapel steps.

A grieving Van der Byl was kept shielded from the cameras because of concerns for her safety.