- A police constable is accused of murdering his ex-partner Lebo Monene at Tembisa Hospital.
- Monene's youngest son is taking her death the hardest.
- The Independent Police Investigative Directorate said the officer, who turned the gun on himself, is still recovering in hospital.
The family of murdered assistant nurse Lebo Monene are still struggling to come to terms with their loss.
Her young child, a three-year-old boy, is taking her death the hardest, Monene's cousin, Daniel Thubakgale, told News24.
"The last-born [child] keeps asking for his mother. He will go to Lebo's car and ask for her because he thinks that she is still here."
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"The family will take him to the grave and tell him, 'This is where your mother is sleeping. You are not going to see her anymore.' There is nothing they can say.
"That one (the youngest child) is the one who is always opening the wounds for the grandparents. Even at night, he doesn't want to sleep because he wants to sleep with his mother," Thubakgale said.
Monene was gunned down in the parking lot of Tembisa Hospital in February by a police constable, who the family said she had broken up with. The officer, whose identity is yet to be released until he appears in court, then turned the gun on himself.
Independent Police Investigative Directorate (IPID) spokesperson Lizzy Suping said the officer is due to appear in the Tembisa Magistrate's Court on Monday. He was charged with murder.
She could not confirm whether the officer would be in court because he was still in hospital, and said she could not discuss "medical conditions of any patient in hospital".
Thubakgale said the family hoped that the case would start so the family could get closure:
"We're still reeling from that disaster. The family is still devastated and can't come to terms with the death of their daughter
"I think since we have buried her, her parents went to the grave three times and still couldn't believe that she was gone. They can't come to terms with her death," Thubakgale said.
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