'I warned them'
2008-07-28 08:43
Reddersburg - He used to assault her, threatened to shoot her and to run her over with his car. She packed her bags and informed welfare officials, but they did not believe her.
This is what Douwnell Erasmus, 22, said about her engagement to a 52-year-old Reddersburg man, who is accused of murdering his neighbour, Anna-Marie O'Halloran, 41, presumably out of jealousy.
Erasmus was engaged to the man two years ago.
"The welfare officers did not believe me when I told them these things and look what happened now."
Erasmus said she and the man were together for nearly three years and had lived together.
Tried to shoot himself
Their three-year-old daughter lived with the man because apparently he was in a better financial position than Erasmus.
"When we parted ways, he said he would shoot me if I went to the police.
"He kept me caged like a little bird in that house."
It was in this house that he tried to shoot himself after he presumably shot O'Halloran. He merely hurt his chin and is recovering in the Pelonomi Hospital in Bloemfontein.
O'Halloran's body was found on Wednesday with a gun-shot wound to her neck, against the wall over which she and the man often chatted.
He is expected to appear in Reddersburg Magistrate's Court on Tuesday on a charge of murder.
Erasmus said that when their relationship ended, the man allegedly began a relationship with O'Halloran.
'Don't know real mother'
Rina Pretorius, O'Halloran's mother, denied on Sunday that the two had had a relationship.
Erasmus lives in Bloemfontein with her new fiancé and wants to know what will happen to her daughter.
"No one has contacted me yet. I'm going to the welfare office on Tuesday to find out. I don't think she knows who her real mother is."