SOUTH AFRICA Cases
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SOUTH AFRICA Cases
IF YOU'VE ever been assailed by this lump-in-the-throat feeling of losing your child in a packed shopping mall for long agonising seconds, then you are my audience.
Those who share my living space know that I'd kill for my children, not a sitting head of state.Having made home in a dwelling that can easily swallow my mother's apartheid-issue yard five times - and a bit more - my young brood's favourite prank is listening to me making my voice hoarse calling after them.Their childish chortles will almost invariably give them away, followed by my own guffaw, relieved that no extraterrestrial had snatched them to do unmentionable things to them.In the hell that Zimbabwe has become, fathers wake up in hospital to remember that they haven't seen their three-year-olds in months. God knows I'd go crazy first before it hits me that my child is missing.Sampson Chenerani, like any other child elsewhere in the sane world, is in a VW Beetle T-shirt and next to his bed is a picture of a dinosaur torn from a magazine.The horror of his fate is that he's in hospital, his "one eye massively swollen, surrounded by a gory abrasion and a wound on his temple".His mother, Margaret, a modest woman of rural Zimbabwean stock says "he is too young to understand".When Zanu-PF goons attacked his home of MDC supporters with sticks and rocks, little Sampson was hit in the eye during the ensuing commotion.One can't help but be moved to paraphrase Nelson Mandela and ask what sort of sick society does this to its own children?Since one particularly toxic dalliance with fermented grapes where I pitched up at the garage with my own kids but instead of filling up got into a fight with the petrol attendant - I even cried - I have vowed that never again will I subject my offspring to such an unsightly experience.Denias Dombo will not be able to spare his children a lot of woe. After he was beaten to a pulp by war veterans, he tried, unsuccessfully, to take his own life when the wire noose failed to do the deed.His nine-year-old daughter Dorcas would find him in that sorry state - covered in blood and his body broken.Shepherd, a 4-year-old boy, accompanies his mother to visit his father in hospital. He points at his father's swollen feet and begs to know: "Daddy, where are your shoes?"This madness, unravelling across the Limpopo, is detailed in The Fear, The Last Days of Robert Mugabe, a book by Peter Godwin.Read it and weep.Children who should be out playing in the mud are treated like enemies of the state and beaten black and blue.In 1994 when neighbour turned against neighbour because one happened to be Tutsi and the other Hutu, we had a perfect excuse for our inaction: we were busy with our first democratic elections.Over a million Rwandans would perish in what would be the continent's worst round of genocide.What will be our excuse when these tormented Zimbabwean children finally cross the border to our shores to contend for space at the robots with their blind countrymen? We were busy? Doing what?In his senility, Mugabe doesn't care.We, South Africans - architects of ubuntu - cannot afford not to care.
Those who share my living space know that I'd kill for my children, not a sitting head of state.Having made home in a dwelling that can easily swallow my mother's apartheid-issue yard five times - and a bit more - my young brood's favourite prank is listening to me making my voice hoarse calling after them.Their childish chortles will almost invariably give them away, followed by my own guffaw, relieved that no extraterrestrial had snatched them to do unmentionable things to them.In the hell that Zimbabwe has become, fathers wake up in hospital to remember that they haven't seen their three-year-olds in months. God knows I'd go crazy first before it hits me that my child is missing.Sampson Chenerani, like any other child elsewhere in the sane world, is in a VW Beetle T-shirt and next to his bed is a picture of a dinosaur torn from a magazine.The horror of his fate is that he's in hospital, his "one eye massively swollen, surrounded by a gory abrasion and a wound on his temple".His mother, Margaret, a modest woman of rural Zimbabwean stock says "he is too young to understand".When Zanu-PF goons attacked his home of MDC supporters with sticks and rocks, little Sampson was hit in the eye during the ensuing commotion.One can't help but be moved to paraphrase Nelson Mandela and ask what sort of sick society does this to its own children?Since one particularly toxic dalliance with fermented grapes where I pitched up at the garage with my own kids but instead of filling up got into a fight with the petrol attendant - I even cried - I have vowed that never again will I subject my offspring to such an unsightly experience.Denias Dombo will not be able to spare his children a lot of woe. After he was beaten to a pulp by war veterans, he tried, unsuccessfully, to take his own life when the wire noose failed to do the deed.His nine-year-old daughter Dorcas would find him in that sorry state - covered in blood and his body broken.Shepherd, a 4-year-old boy, accompanies his mother to visit his father in hospital. He points at his father's swollen feet and begs to know: "Daddy, where are your shoes?"This madness, unravelling across the Limpopo, is detailed in The Fear, The Last Days of Robert Mugabe, a book by Peter Godwin.Read it and weep.Children who should be out playing in the mud are treated like enemies of the state and beaten black and blue.In 1994 when neighbour turned against neighbour because one happened to be Tutsi and the other Hutu, we had a perfect excuse for our inaction: we were busy with our first democratic elections.Over a million Rwandans would perish in what would be the continent's worst round of genocide.What will be our excuse when these tormented Zimbabwean children finally cross the border to our shores to contend for space at the robots with their blind countrymen? We were busy? Doing what?In his senility, Mugabe doesn't care.We, South Africans - architects of ubuntu - cannot afford not to care.
TomTerrific0420- Supreme Commander of the Universe With Cape AND Tights AND Fancy Headgear
- Job/hobbies : Searching for Truth and Justice
Re: SOUTH AFRICA Cases
Another mom may face child murder charge
October 28 2010
CAPE TIMES
Fourteen-month-old Ichume Somkhence's coffin is lowered into the grave. The toddler died after allegedly drinkign poison. Photo: Jason Boud
A Bishop Lavis mother who tried, but failed to kill herself and ended up killing her one-year-old daughter, may face a murder charge.
Tuesday’s incident brings to seven the number of cases involving children who have been abandoned or murdered, allegedly by their mothers, during this month alone.
The 32-year-old mother left suicide notes saying she was struggling financially because her daughter’s father was not supporting their only child and no one was helping her.
Police suspect she had tried to take both their lives by overdosing on pills and feeding her child other medication.
While the police continued investigating the Bishop Lavis incident on Wednesday, a 14-month-old girl allegedly poisoned by her mother in Philippi last week was buried. The girl’s eight-year-old sister, who had also been poisoned, was recovering in hospital, while their mother, 29, was in prison charged with murder and attempted murder.
Police spokeswoman Marie Louw said the incident in Bishop Lavis was on the day the one-year-old girl’s mother was supposed to have taken her to enrol in a creche.
The girl’s grandmother had left her daughter and the child at home, expecting them to go to the creche. But when she returned in the afternoon, she found her grandchild dead on the floor near her unconscious daughter.
It was not clear how long they had been there.
Louw said the police found boxes of tablets belonging to the grandmother, along with a baby bottle.
“We’ve sent the bottle for testing to see if tablets were put in the bottle. We’re also looking into whether the mother gave her daughter tablets orally,” she said.
Louw said officers found suicide notes written by the mother saying her daughter’s father was not supporting their child and she was struggling financially.
Louw said it appeared the mother had gathered all the tablets she could find in the house and had taken them.
She said according to family members it was not the first time the woman had tried to commit suicide.
After visiting her daughter in Tygerberg Hospital on Wednesday, the child’s grandmother said she was in shock.
“I’m sick in my heart. My daughter is okay but my grandchild is gone. My daughter isn’t talking to me. That was her only child,” she said in a telephone interview.
The grandmother confirmed the tablets used belonged to her. She said she was too traumatised to say anything further.
October 28 2010
CAPE TIMES
Fourteen-month-old Ichume Somkhence's coffin is lowered into the grave. The toddler died after allegedly drinkign poison. Photo: Jason Boud
A Bishop Lavis mother who tried, but failed to kill herself and ended up killing her one-year-old daughter, may face a murder charge.
Tuesday’s incident brings to seven the number of cases involving children who have been abandoned or murdered, allegedly by their mothers, during this month alone.
The 32-year-old mother left suicide notes saying she was struggling financially because her daughter’s father was not supporting their only child and no one was helping her.
Police suspect she had tried to take both their lives by overdosing on pills and feeding her child other medication.
While the police continued investigating the Bishop Lavis incident on Wednesday, a 14-month-old girl allegedly poisoned by her mother in Philippi last week was buried. The girl’s eight-year-old sister, who had also been poisoned, was recovering in hospital, while their mother, 29, was in prison charged with murder and attempted murder.
Police spokeswoman Marie Louw said the incident in Bishop Lavis was on the day the one-year-old girl’s mother was supposed to have taken her to enrol in a creche.
The girl’s grandmother had left her daughter and the child at home, expecting them to go to the creche. But when she returned in the afternoon, she found her grandchild dead on the floor near her unconscious daughter.
It was not clear how long they had been there.
Louw said the police found boxes of tablets belonging to the grandmother, along with a baby bottle.
“We’ve sent the bottle for testing to see if tablets were put in the bottle. We’re also looking into whether the mother gave her daughter tablets orally,” she said.
Louw said officers found suicide notes written by the mother saying her daughter’s father was not supporting their child and she was struggling financially.
Louw said it appeared the mother had gathered all the tablets she could find in the house and had taken them.
She said according to family members it was not the first time the woman had tried to commit suicide.
After visiting her daughter in Tygerberg Hospital on Wednesday, the child’s grandmother said she was in shock.
“I’m sick in my heart. My daughter is okay but my grandchild is gone. My daughter isn’t talking to me. That was her only child,” she said in a telephone interview.
The grandmother confirmed the tablets used belonged to her. She said she was too traumatised to say anything further.
twinkletoes- Supreme Commander of the Universe With Cape AND Tights AND Fancy Headgear
- Job/hobbies : Trying to keep my sanity. Trying to accept that which I cannot change. It's hard.
Re: SOUTH AFRICA Cases
Cold-blooded dad gets double life sentence
CONVICTED King William’s Town child murderer Peter Shaw, 37, received a double life sentence yesterday for hanging his two young children from a doorway in their home in what Judge Jeremy Pickering called “a callous, cold- blooded and despicable” deed.
“The accused used his children as pawns to be sacrificed in his battle with his wife,” Pickering said during sentencing in the Grahamstown High Court yesterday.
On Good Friday last year Shaw – who is now divorced and whose marriage was falling apart at the time – took his daughter Robyn, 4, and son Shannon, 7, from their beds and hanged them by a rope in the doorways of their adjacent bedrooms. The horrific murders happened in the Shaw family home in Breidbach, King William’s Town. Shaw tried to commit suicide afterwards, but failed. And, while he admitted that only he could have killed the children, he claimed he did not remember the murders.
Medical testimony during the trial suggested the children had not been sedated prior to their deaths.
Pickering said yesterday Shaw had hanged his two children to punish his wife, Tania, for resisting his control. “It is difficult to imagine a more callous, cold-blooded and despicable deed,” Pickering said.
“He now says it should be remembered that he, too, was suffering the loss of his children and that people did not realise how hard this was for him. That he was the cause of the deaths of two innocent children appears to have escaped him entirely in his hypocritical attempts to portray himself as one of the victims.
“His evidence in this regard is once again a striking illustration of his utter self-absorption.”
Pickering also said that by his conduct Shaw had devastated the lives of the rest of the family.
He referred to testimony in mitigation on behalf of Shaw, which suggested that the children would at least have died a relatively quick and painless death. According to the medical evidence they would have suffered only a short period of convulsions before the cut-off of oxygen to their brains caused them to become comatose.
“This submission overlooks and ignores the bewildered terror they must have experienced when ... their supposedly loving father and protector proceeded to hang them. It is not difficult to imagine the even greater terror which must have been experienced by the child who was the second to be hanged upon seeing the body of his or her sibling, and upon realising what fate lay ahead.”
Pickering said only one sentence would be appropriate on each of the two counts of murder “and that is a sentence of life imprisonment”.
Correctional Services has yet to decide where Shaw will serve his sentence.
CONVICTED King William’s Town child murderer Peter Shaw, 37, received a double life sentence yesterday for hanging his two young children from a doorway in their home in what Judge Jeremy Pickering called “a callous, cold- blooded and despicable” deed.
“The accused used his children as pawns to be sacrificed in his battle with his wife,” Pickering said during sentencing in the Grahamstown High Court yesterday.
On Good Friday last year Shaw – who is now divorced and whose marriage was falling apart at the time – took his daughter Robyn, 4, and son Shannon, 7, from their beds and hanged them by a rope in the doorways of their adjacent bedrooms. The horrific murders happened in the Shaw family home in Breidbach, King William’s Town. Shaw tried to commit suicide afterwards, but failed. And, while he admitted that only he could have killed the children, he claimed he did not remember the murders.
Medical testimony during the trial suggested the children had not been sedated prior to their deaths.
Pickering said yesterday Shaw had hanged his two children to punish his wife, Tania, for resisting his control. “It is difficult to imagine a more callous, cold-blooded and despicable deed,” Pickering said.
“He now says it should be remembered that he, too, was suffering the loss of his children and that people did not realise how hard this was for him. That he was the cause of the deaths of two innocent children appears to have escaped him entirely in his hypocritical attempts to portray himself as one of the victims.
“His evidence in this regard is once again a striking illustration of his utter self-absorption.”
Pickering also said that by his conduct Shaw had devastated the lives of the rest of the family.
He referred to testimony in mitigation on behalf of Shaw, which suggested that the children would at least have died a relatively quick and painless death. According to the medical evidence they would have suffered only a short period of convulsions before the cut-off of oxygen to their brains caused them to become comatose.
“This submission overlooks and ignores the bewildered terror they must have experienced when ... their supposedly loving father and protector proceeded to hang them. It is not difficult to imagine the even greater terror which must have been experienced by the child who was the second to be hanged upon seeing the body of his or her sibling, and upon realising what fate lay ahead.”
Pickering said only one sentence would be appropriate on each of the two counts of murder “and that is a sentence of life imprisonment”.
Correctional Services has yet to decide where Shaw will serve his sentence.
twinkletoes- Supreme Commander of the Universe With Cape AND Tights AND Fancy Headgear
- Job/hobbies : Trying to keep my sanity. Trying to accept that which I cannot change. It's hard.
SOUTH AFRICA •
THE heartbroken family of a Port Elizabeth teenager, who mysteriously disappeared from her home on Friday night, identified her charred remains yesterday after the body was found dumped in a field in Bethelsdorp.
Linkside High School matric pupil Stacey Cornelius, who was due to write her final exam yesterday, received a message from someone on Friday night, prompting her to slip out of the house “for a moment” in her slippers and pajamas. She never returned and a frantic search for her throughout the weekend – which included circulating e-mails across the city – culminated yesterday morning when police called the family to identify Stacey’s badly burnt body. The police described the scene as one of the most gruesome they had ever seen. Stacey’s mother, Lisle Douglas, was heavily sedated yesterday but her stepfather, Danie, said family members were devastated. “I really just want today to be finished,” he said from their flat in Algoa Park, where at least 40 visibly shocked friends and family had gathered to show support. Douglas said details were still sketchy, but the police were investigating Stacey’s abduction and murder. “We really do not know what happened,” he said. “My wife and I went to a function at the Boardwalk on Friday night and arrived home a few minutes before midnight.” Douglas said he had gone to Stacey’s room to check on her and discovered she was not in her bed. He then went to her 16-year-old sister and asked where she was. “She did not know, but said Stacey had gone out in her slippers and pajamas, saying she would be back soon.” As midnight approached Douglas called her cellphone, which rang before someone dropped the call. “I continued to call numerous times, but her phone was off,” he said. “I went to the police station first thing on Saturday to report her missing and called her phone about 300 times, but it was still off. “She either got a phone call or Mxit message from someone who told her to meet them outside. “She was not dressed to go out, so it was someone who must have contacted her and come to the flats.” Police spokesman Captain Sandra Janse van Rensburg said the body had been found in a field in Nooitgedacht Road on Sunday morning. “A shepherd was walking his sheep through the field when he saw the remains,” she said. At that stage, police did not know the identity of the person, but they found traces of clothing and other items at the scene. “Only yesterday, when detectives discovered that Stacey’s parents had reported her missing, did they call the family to establish if it was possibly the same person,” Janse van Rensburg said. “Friends and family were called in and identified the clothing and other items that belonged to her. We are interviewing all the people who last saw her alive so we can gather evidence and attempt to track her steps.” Douglas described Stacey as a good student with a passion for writing and music. “She was a talented musician and was actually meant to write her final music exam this afternoon (yesterday),” he said. Stacey had received a letter of acceptance from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University last week. “She was a very caring person and she really wanted to study subjects to do with social welfare.”
Linkside High School matric pupil Stacey Cornelius, who was due to write her final exam yesterday, received a message from someone on Friday night, prompting her to slip out of the house “for a moment” in her slippers and pajamas. She never returned and a frantic search for her throughout the weekend – which included circulating e-mails across the city – culminated yesterday morning when police called the family to identify Stacey’s badly burnt body. The police described the scene as one of the most gruesome they had ever seen. Stacey’s mother, Lisle Douglas, was heavily sedated yesterday but her stepfather, Danie, said family members were devastated. “I really just want today to be finished,” he said from their flat in Algoa Park, where at least 40 visibly shocked friends and family had gathered to show support. Douglas said details were still sketchy, but the police were investigating Stacey’s abduction and murder. “We really do not know what happened,” he said. “My wife and I went to a function at the Boardwalk on Friday night and arrived home a few minutes before midnight.” Douglas said he had gone to Stacey’s room to check on her and discovered she was not in her bed. He then went to her 16-year-old sister and asked where she was. “She did not know, but said Stacey had gone out in her slippers and pajamas, saying she would be back soon.” As midnight approached Douglas called her cellphone, which rang before someone dropped the call. “I continued to call numerous times, but her phone was off,” he said. “I went to the police station first thing on Saturday to report her missing and called her phone about 300 times, but it was still off. “She either got a phone call or Mxit message from someone who told her to meet them outside. “She was not dressed to go out, so it was someone who must have contacted her and come to the flats.” Police spokesman Captain Sandra Janse van Rensburg said the body had been found in a field in Nooitgedacht Road on Sunday morning. “A shepherd was walking his sheep through the field when he saw the remains,” she said. At that stage, police did not know the identity of the person, but they found traces of clothing and other items at the scene. “Only yesterday, when detectives discovered that Stacey’s parents had reported her missing, did they call the family to establish if it was possibly the same person,” Janse van Rensburg said. “Friends and family were called in and identified the clothing and other items that belonged to her. We are interviewing all the people who last saw her alive so we can gather evidence and attempt to track her steps.” Douglas described Stacey as a good student with a passion for writing and music. “She was a talented musician and was actually meant to write her final music exam this afternoon (yesterday),” he said. Stacey had received a letter of acceptance from the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University last week. “She was a very caring person and she really wanted to study subjects to do with social welfare.”
TomTerrific0420- Supreme Commander of the Universe With Cape AND Tights AND Fancy Headgear
- Job/hobbies : Searching for Truth and Justice
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