In Pretoria, South Africa, a Facebook status posted by a woman being attacked by two armed robbers in her home was able to summon help, according to The Daily News. Lizette Langeveld, 43, was attacked by two armed men who broke into her Centurion home around 7:30 PM Monday, the Beeld reports.
The men bound Langeveld and her 10-year-old son, took her cellphone, and stated that they were going to wait for her husband to arrive home and kill him. She was able to untie herself and her son, grab a laptop, and hide in a closet. From there, she updated her Facebook status to “Please help! We have an armed robbery, they’re waiting for Hennie at the gate, please phone him, don’t let him come inside.” A second wall post read “Help! Call Hennie. We’ve managed to untie ourselves. They said they would come back to rape me. Armed.” One of Langeveld’s Facebook friends saw the post and contacted Hennie Langeveld. Police and security guards promptly arrived at the house, but the robbers had fled. Pretoria Police Captain Agnes Huma has stated that the robbers are still at large.
Langeveld said on the matter, “I could only think of Facebook and hoping someone would read the messages I write and think… it is amazing how the internet community helped to save my family.”
As of late, Facebook has been of assistance in other matters of crime, like the Bonnie and Clyde-type characters who’d documented their vandalism antics on their Timelines. And then was the user who’d punched his wife in the face after she’d failed to “like” his Facebook status.