'Ingilsman' will decide later
2002-04-01 08:42
Johannesburg - The widow of well-known storyteller and author, Pieter Pieterse, has not yet decided where she is going to stay after the gruesome murder of her husband.
"She is simply too uprooted to make any decisions," says Marietjie Coetzee, one of Pieterse's sisters and his publisher for many years.
Jenny Pieterse - 'Ingilsman', as Pieterse called her - flew to Cape Town on Sunday where she attended a memorial service for her husband at the Agterbaai Dutch Reformed church in St Helenabaai on Monday.
Coetzee said Pieterse would be returning to Pretoria on Thursday. "She'll stay here with me or with my mother (Emily Coetzee) until everything has settled and then she will decide what she wants to do," she says.
According to her, Pieterse is still "unsure" about her plans and does not want to make any important decisions now.
Superintendent Izak van Zyl, police spokesperson in Mpumalanga, said police are busy comparing fingerprints found on stolen goods to those in the databank.
Pieterse identified a TV set, portable radio and clothes that belonged to the couple at the police station last week. The killers probably dropped it while fleeing the scene.
The fingerprints are very poor and cannot be scanned by a computer. "The fingerprints are now being compared by hand in an attempt to track down the perpetrators," Van Zyl explained. According to him, the process may take up to two weeks.
Daan Pieterse, Pieter's brother, says he is satisfied with the police investigation thus far. He wants the killers to be caught so they can "know what had happened".
Pieter Pieterse was murdered at his home in Marlothpark, Mpumalanga last month. His wife found his body a week later.