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Child finds woman's body
22/12/2006 09:50 - (SA)
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| Monique Pieterse. (Die Burger) |
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Lynn Williams, Die Burger
Port Elizabeth - A child's kite led to the police finding the badly decomposed body of a missing woman in Arcadia on Tuesday.
A middle-aged man and a boy, who were playing with a kite in the bush, apparently found the body of Monique Pieterse, 24, after the boy's kite landed on her.
The man immediately informed police.
Pieterse went missing in Arcadia about three weeks ago.
Her body was found several metres from her parents' house on Tuesday.
Police had searched the same area with the dog unit hours earlier on the same day without finding anything.
Pieterse's body was lying in a pool of water. She was fully clothed and still wearing a gold bracelet, a golden ring and her dentures.
She went missing on November 25 and concerned family and friends launched an extensive search.
The family, still battling to come to terms with her death, is facing a dark Christmas.
Pieterse's mother, Gloria Pieterse, said everything was still a big shock and she didn't know what to think.
"We kept searching for weeks and prayed that the police or somebody else would find her alive, but that didn't happen.
"A detective gave us the bad news on Tuesday," said the heartbroken mother.
The deceased's brother, Ricardo Pieterse, said although they don't have all the facts, they suspect his sister had been murdered.
"We were shocked that her body was found less than 200m from the house, because we had received many clues and started searching around the clock...
"The fact that her body was badly decomposed made me think that she had been murdered on the same day she went missing," he said.
Before Pieterse was found the traumatised family had to identify the body of a woman who fitted her description at the Mount Road police station.
The body was that of Samantha Kemp, 28, also from Arcadia, who went missing a week before Pieterse.
"It bothers me not to know what had happened to my sister. She was a very friendly person who loved to make jokes.
"We will have to wait for the results of the post-mortem to get answers," said her brother.
She will be buried from the old Apostolic Church in Arcadia at 14:00 on Friday.
- Die Burger
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