Mom strangles, burns baby
2009-06-25 09:48
Vanderbijlpark - A young mother stood, hanging her head, at the place where she allegedly burnt the body of her four-month-old baby boy early on Wednesday morning.
She was arrested after being questioned by police.
Wednesday was also her birthday.
Wilhelmina Johanna Kraft, 23, from Stefanopark smallholdings, allegedly first strangled her baby boy, Daniël, and then lay his body on a road where an oblivious truck driver presumably ran over him.
The baby boy was then apparently wrapped in a baby blanket and his body was burnt in the long, dry grass along the side of the road, among prickly pears.
Car theft investigation
Thinus Oosthuizen of the Vanderbijlpark police found Kraft in Sasolburg on Wednesday morning, after he'd heard about a car theft on the same premises where a mother and her son "were also missing".
"I didn't know whether the disappearance had any connection with the vehicle theft, but I decided for the time being it would be more important to find Kraft and Daniël."
Oosthuizen's detective work led him to Kraft, shortly after she was dropped off at the town's post office by a farm stall owner.
The owner, Anesia Meyer, 39, said Kraft was standing behind her when she opened the shop.
"She said she had been locked out of her house the previous night, and had spent the whole night under the stall's awning in the cold," Meyer told Beeld on Wednesday.
Meyer said Kraft told her that her baby was with his grandmother – the mother of the baby's father, Daniël Labuschagne, 22, in Vanderbijlpark.
According to Meyer, Kraft and Labuschagne had been together for years, and were regular clients of the farm stall opposite their house.
"We chatted for about an hour, had coffee and smoked a few cigarettes, before I dropped her at the Sasolburg post office, at her request."
Beautiful little boy
Apparently Kraft wanted to see her mother who lived in the town.
"It's quite difficult to stand here and think about the helpless little mother who spent all night seeking shelter from the cold with her baby under my awning. Daniël was such a beautiful little boy," she said.
Kraft and Labuschagne reportedly have another child, who is no longer in their care.
Kraft will appear in the Vanderbijlpark Magistrate's Court on Friday.