A man accused of stealing a chocolate bar from a supermarket froze to death after being locked overnight in a freezer for 11 hours by security guards.
Bandile Shabalala, 33, was seized by security as he was leaving the Shoprite shop in Ratanda township, Heidelberg, in Gauteng province, South Africa, and shut in the freezer on Sunday. His frozen body was found the following morning.
Police had to fight off furious demonstrators who besieged the Shoprite supermarket, where security guards fired rubber bullets into the stone-throwing crowd. Local media said that the victim was unemployed and had been with two friends who fled the scene when security guards grabbed him.
Several shoppers told local media that shoplifters are regularly locked inside the supermarket's freezer but are normally released after about 30 minutes. Police are investigating the death.
The Shoprite mall in Gauteng, South Africa (Newsflash)Last year, a US man was found dead in a chest freezer of an empty home after hiding in the vessel while on the run from police. Brandon Lee Buschman, 34, was discovered in the freezer in the basement of the unoccupied home on June 26, 2023, according to the Gilbert Minnesota Police Department.
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Buschman, from Babbit, had an active warrant out for his arrest and it is believed that he became stuck in the freezer after climbing into it. Witnesses confirmed with authorities that they last saw the man fleeing from the upstairs part of the home because of possible police presence in the area.
Police shared that the chest freezer was an older model, one with a latching model on the outside of the device. When closed, the freezer is not capable of being opened from the inside.
A preliminary investigation found that Buschman entered the freezer on his own accord, with a metal lawn ornament rod found to have been "inserted from inside of the freezer toward the latching mechanism."
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