Cop kills girlfriend, her mom and himself
A POLICE officer killed his girlfriend and her mother before turning the gun on himself in a hostage drama in Mitchells Plain.
The is the second incident where a cop killed himself in as many weeks.
Detective Sergeant Granville Brooks, 41, who was stationed at Lentegeur, held his girlfriend, Charmaine Goliath, 27, and her parents captive at their house in Begonia Street, Lentegeur.
Goliath and her mother, Susan April, 54, were both shot and killed, but her father survived the ordeal.
Neighbours and police sources say the couple had been dating for years and apparently had a heated argument on Wednesday night.
Brooks had apparently been away for detective training in Oudtshoorn and had returned home on Wednesday.
The divorced officer returned to the house and was seen by Goliath’s neighbours who say he even greeted them yesterday morning.
But then they heard “four or five gunshots” ring out from the house a while later.
Police at the scene said Brooks had shot Charmaine and her mother in a bedroom. He had then taken photographs and sent them to a colleague.
It was this that galvanised police into action, who at that stage thought the family was still being held hostage.
Police snipers, law enforcement, forensics and ambulance teams were on the scene as negotiators tried to make contact with Brooks.
Brooks’s distraught mother was also there, begging police to give her a chance to “talk him down”. They did not know he was already dead, having shot himself soon after killing the two women.
Their bodies were discovered when masked sniper teams fired teargas into the house and stormed in.
A police source says Goliath’s father was unharmed. It is not clear where he was when his wife and daughter were murdered. Police spokesperson FC Van Wyk said they were investigating the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.
“We have opened a murder and inquest docket.”
Last week, Sergeant Bradley Franks, 53, shot himself in his car in front of his girlfriend’s home in Morgenster in Mitchells Plain. He was stationed at Kensington police station.
Relatives and colleagues said Franks was a “good Samaritan” who had served his community and they could not say what had led to the family tragedy.