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Exhumed body linked to Umzinto?
06/10/2007 13:00 - (SA)
Johannesburg - A body of a woman - which was mistakenly buried by a family after being found at Majola Tea Estate near Port St Johns - was dug up on Friday for DNA tests, Eastern Cape police said on Saturday.
Captain Mduduzi Godlwana said police were investigating the possibility of links between the Majola Tea Plantation killings and those in Umzinto near Durban.
"The body was mistakenly identified as that of 25-year-old Nomaneli Teno in February this year.
"Her family buried the body but later realised it wasn't their daughter after she came back from Cape Town later in February to let them know she was still alive," said Godlwana.
He said the body was exhumed to allow DNA tests to be conducted on October 9 and also to allow families in Durban to identify the body on October 8.
"There is a possibility of a third body also buried on the Majola Tea Estate," said Godlwana.
A total of eight women's bodies have been found in the sugarcane fields surrounding Umzinto's Shayamoya township near Durban since the beginning of September.
However, investigations have taken police as far south as Port St Johns.
Police initially arrested five people, three women and two men, in connection with the Umzinto murders.
Two were later released and two men and a woman appeared in the Umzinto Magistrates' Court on charges of abduction and murder last week.
However, Superintendent Zandra Hechter of the Durban police said she did not have any information about the recovery of the body in Port St Johns on Friday for DNA testing.
- SAPA
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