In what is a tragedy of immense proportions, a 12-year-old boy was drowned in a bath of boiling water by robbers who raped his mother before killing both his parents in a violent house robbery.

A report on this act of gross wickedness identified two “insiders” as being responsible for the heinous act.

According to a Daily Mail of London story, three men broke into the family’s home in Walkerville, Johannesburg, South Africa, where they assaulted and shot dead Tony Viana, 53, and brutally raped and killed his wife, Geraldine.

They then tied up and gagged the sobbing boy, Amaro, and pushed him into a bath of boiling hot water to drown him, “because he would be able to identify them.”

The wicked act was perpetrated by the family’s gardener, Patrick Petrus Radebe, 24, and their domestic servant’s son, Sipho Mbele, 21, both of whom pleaded guilty to three charges of murder and one charge of rape each, according to the Daily Mail report quoting Sowetan Live of South Africa.

Mbele and Radebe admitted guilt on charges of burglary with the intent to steal, robbery with aggravating circumstances, the possession of an unlicensed firearm, the illegal possession of ammunition and intentional damage to goods.

Their accomplice, David Motaung, 20, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to robbery charges. “They then left the South African court and walked back their cellslaughing,” the paper said, quoting South Africa’s Beeld newspaper.

The family dog was killed by having his stomach cut open.

Lawyer to the accused men told Vereeniging Regional Court that they had broken into the house to steal and to get revenge for the way they had been treated by 42-year-old Mrs. Viana, their employer.

Mr. Viana had arrived home at the house only to be attacked with a golf club and a machete-like ‘panga’ and ordered to open the family’s safe. He was tied up and his wife and son, who arrived shortly after, were tied up in separate rooms.

Mbele then raped Mrs. Viana while Radebe helped restrain her by standing on her face before raping her too. They then shot her with her husband’s gun before shooting him in the head too, according to reports.

According to a statement by the accused, on realising that Amaro would recognise them, “We went to the bathroom and turned on the tap. We went to (Amaro) him and gagged him because he was crying. We forced him into the bath face down, knowing that he would drown.”

The evil men will be sentenced on September 6.

*Photo (courtesy Daily mail) shows Amaro with his mother Geraldine and father Tony, who were shot to death by the robbers, along with Gabriela Correia, Mr Viana's daughter by his first marriage