Mayhem Kid Feels No Pain

This is the boy who cannot feel pain.

He slashes his arms with kitchen knives and has even put a 10 cm nail into his leg.

But he laughs in the face of the blood spurting out of his veins.

Hyperactive Con-Leigh Abrahams, 7, is sendinging his family and neighbours up the wall with his weird behaviour.

He kicks, screams, spits on people, assaults them, breaks windows and hurls abuse.

He can't even be trusted to sleep alone.

Instead his dad Hendrik sleeps in his son's bed to make sure he doesn't hurt himself, or someone else.

It's a constant battle to keep sharp objects out of reach of the chilling child, who tries to cut himself almost every day.

Two months ago he plunged the huge nail into his leg, but he just laughed when any other child would have cried and screamed.

A huge scar remains.

Desperate mom Julie says doctors at Tygerberg hospital have tried everything but can't get to the bottom of her son's problem.

She has taken Con-Leigh there almost every week since last September, but his violent rampages continue.

Doctors have put the kid on a high dose of Ritalin but it has not solved his problems.

The Eersterivier community now shun the family, as tales of Con-Leigh's violence spread.

Julie says: "He's gone up to people, spat on them, taken their cell phones and smashed them down.

"He kicks people, everything. People who know us are OK, but those who don't, don't appreciate what it's like.

"Con-Leigh just shows no emotion when he hurts himself

"He was a sweet little guy before September last year but not any more.

"He needs to be on 24-hour watch. I had to give up my job as a nurse to look after him."

Mom Julie, dad Hendrik, sister Aisha, 12 and brother Reagan, 5, are baffled as to the source of Con-Leigh's problem.

Con-Leigh used to love karate and rugby, and worked hard at school.

He used to love to dance to the rapper Ja Rule.

But that's all in the past. Mayhem and sharp objects are his terrible toys now.

I love that last line. "Mayhem and sharp objects are his terrible toys now." Beautiful.

That's from the Daily Voice, of course.

An update on the misguided fellow I featured in last week's Voice story: he shut down his web site and left town. If you want to read the part of his website that touched off the furor, one of the local papers reprinted the who thing here.