Wife sees 'dead husband' begging

2008-01-15 09:11

Virginia Keppler

Pretoria - A woman from Lindo Park in the east of Pretoria thought she was seeing a ghost when she saw her "dead husband", whom she buried in September last year, begging at a shopping centre in East Lynne on Friday.

Elizabeth Rossouw, 41, said she nearly died of fright.

Her husband, Dawid "Mossie" Rossouw, left home about six years ago. Since then she had seen him only once in a while.

A family friend told her "Mossie is dead" after she had not seen him for quite a while. "I believed it".

Wouldn't believe it

Rossouw and her friend, Neels Bezuidenhout, went to the Pretoria mortuary where they found a badly decomposed body.

"I personally identified the body and was positive that it was my husband. "

"The police took his fingerprints and thus determined it was Mossie."

According to a death certificate he died of double pneumonia on July 13 2007. He was buried in Zandfontein cemetery on September 3.

Rossouw and her son Quinton, 20, were nearly "shocked out of our shoes" when they saw the "deceased" at a shopping centre in East Lynne.

"We were so shocked that we didn't even talk to him. On our way home I asked Quinton to turn back so that we could check whether we had really seen him."

They went home and told Bezuidenhout about the incident.

"He said: 'Bullshit, I personally helped carry his coffin and cover it with earth'."

Had the right ID number

Bezuidenhout said he jumped into his minibus and drove to the shopping centre to investigate. "I asked him who he was and he wrote down Dawid Erasmus 'Mossie' Rossouw. He also wrote down his identity number."

Bezuidenhout and Rossouw blamed the police for not doing their job properly.

They found out on Tuesday they had buried Jacobus Willem Dreyer. "I hope his family read that he had a nice funeral."

Beeld accompanied Rossouw in a search for her husband on Tuesday. He was found in East Lynne. He had cooldrink, a bottle of wine, a blanket, a jacket and a few personal possessions in a plastic bag with him.

Rossouw explained to her husband that she and Bezuidenhout would pick him up on Wednesday morning to have his fingerprints taken at the department of home affairs so that he could be declared alive again.

Police spokesperson captain Prince Mokhabela said the incident would be investigated.

- Beeld