Honey, I’m killing the children

Dad told her he was killing them

A MOTHER of four boys aged four, six, 10 and 13 initially did not suspect anything untoward when she received a call from their father in Limpopo.

Then the voice on the other side of the line asked threateningly: “Do you have anything to say to the children before I kill them?”

The woman, who was in Pretoria, froze in fear when she heard her youngest son screaming, saying his siblings were bleeding. Fearing for the worst, she called a neighbour to check up on the children.

Then the full horror of what had transpired in the house in Makiting section of Moletlane, Zebediela, dawned on her.

The neighbour discovered that two of the boys had been stabbed to death in the dining room while the other two were killed in the couple’s bedroom. The man, who cannot be named pending his court appearance, allegedly slit their throats and attempted to kill himself. He is now under police guard at a Polokwane hospital.

Police spokeswoman Lieutenant-Colonel Ronel Otto said the man will face four counts of murder as soon as he is discharged.

Yesterday, the tearful mother, who had rushed home from Pretoria where she works, told Sowetan: “I so wish he could live so I can ask him why he did this to the children.”

She said her husband and the children had visited her at a filling station where she works as a cashier last Friday. When they left in the early hours of Sunday, she suspected nothing wrong. Then at 6am, she got the shocking call.

“I was surprised when he called at around 6am asking if I had something to say to the kids before he killed them. We had our differences but we managed to resolve them during his visit at the weekend. I do not know what led him to kill our children,” said the 35-year-old mom.

The couple threw a big white wedding feast in 2009. She described her husband as a “cool guy” who neither drank alcohol nor smoked.

The man’s father, who can also not be named, said he did not know what led to the killings.

“My son would tell me whenever he had problems in his family, and I don’t know why he took this decision now. He must just recover and tell us what happened,” said the 65year-old father.

The man had just started working as a driver for a local company that had won a school feeding scheme tender. He was staying alone at his house, whose construction is nearing completion.

The family is relatively poor, hence the woman left home to look for work in Gauteng. The kids were left in the care of their grandmother.

A neighbour told Sowetan she knew the man as “reserved and God-fearing”.

The man’s nephew said they were still shocked at the killings.

“The whole family is still in shock. Nobody believed my uncle could do such a horrible thing.”

MEC for safety, security and liaison Mapula Mokaba-Phukwana, who visited the family yesterday, said she would write a motivation so that the man does not qualify for parole. “If he was tired of living then why did he not take his own life instead of those of the kids?” she asked.

“Do you have anything to say to the children before I kill them