Grave dug up, body missing

2005-09-12 11:31

Johannesburg - A grave has been dug up in a cemetery in the Sekhukhune area, near Polokwane, and the body stolen from the coffin, Limpopo police said on Monday.

Superintendent Patty Khumalo said members of the public discovered on Saturday the grave at the cemetery in Ga-Maloma village had been tampered with.

They alerted the deceased's family who went to the cemetery with the police and traditional leaders.

"The grave had been dug up so that the coffin was visible," Khumalo said.

The family hauled the coffin from the grave and, since they did not have the keys to the locks, broke it open.

The body, that of a 67-year-old woman, had been removed but the clothes she was buried in as well as the sheet covering her were still inside.

Khumalo said nobody knew when the grave had been dug up and the body removed.

The woman was buried in April.

- SAPA