Mom held over death of kids

A Hammanskraal mother handed herself over to police after spending a week on the run for allegedly killing her two children.

The 27-year-old apparently confessed from a holding cell that she mixed rat poison with food, which she fed to her two children, aged two and seven.

The woman, from Stinkwater, also attempted suicide by consuming the rat poison, but she survived, police spokesperson Constable Herman Moremi said.

The childrens’ father found them dead on the bed last Sunday with rat poison next to the bed.

“She was surprised to survive the poison and decided to run away to Bela Bela, where she hid in a park for two days before coming back to Ramotse Village in Temba, Hammanskraal,” said Moremi.

After hearing of her children’s death on radio news bulletins and that she was the main suspect, the woman went to her brother on Friday night, Moremi said.

“They told her she had been reported missing and it would be better to hand herself to the police. Her family accompanied her to the Temba police station, where she was detained,” he said.

She is expected to appear before the Moretele Magistrate’s Court soon facing two counts of murder.

Meanwhile, in Tshwane North, police detained 417 people in the past week for various crimes, including murder, rape, fraud, malicious damage to property, kidnapping, house robbery, business robbery and arson.