Mom killed days after moving to new home
2013-02-08 10:00
Welkom - Only days after a Free State mother of two children
moved into her new house in Riebeeckstad, Welkom, she was killed while
unpacking boxes.
Carmen van der Westhuizen, 38, was attacked in the kitchen
and her head was slashed open with an axe or panga. Her throat was also slit,
reported Volksblad.
Her shocked husband, Pieter van der Westhuizen, found her
body.
He said he was grateful that his children Dylan, 8, and
Minette, 9, were in the car when he went into the house.
The family had just moved from Delareyville to Welkom for
the husband’s work.
Workers were supposed to visit the house to look at the
garden and pool but when the husband was unable to get his wife on the phone,
he became worried. Then the school phoned him to say the children had not been
fetched yet and he immediately left to get them.
An armed response security guard was also called and met the
father at the house. He said when the husband came out of the house, he knew
there was big trouble.
“He said I should go look in the kitchen. There I found his
wife. It was not a pretty picture,” said Jan Engelbrecht.
The family’s two dogs had been locked up in an outside room.
Sapa reported that Free State police arrested a man in
connection with the murder on Thursday night. He will appear in court soon.
- SAPA
