Cops try to unravel murder-suicide

A MURDER-suicide has claimed the life of a woman and the man suspected to be her lover, who turned the gun on himself after shooting her dead yesterday morning in Krugersdorp.

According to the chairperson and spokesperson of the Krugersdorp Community Police Forum’s sector 3, Piet Sparks, the man first shot the woman twice in the abdomen and then pumped one bullet into his head.

Both victims were declared dead on the scene, and police are investigating the motive for the double tragedy.

Sparks said that although the precise details surrounding yesterday’s shooting were not clear, security guards patrolling the area are said to have witnessed the murder-suicide.

Sparks said the security guards were stationed at the gate of a private estate where the incident took place.

“The eyewitnesses saw that two people were having a quarrel. Then a shot was fired, then a second shot was fired and the lady fell down,” Sparks said.

The man allegedly fired another shot in the air as he was walking across the road away from the bleeding woman on the pavement.

“The man then got in his car and shot himself once in the head,” he said.

The incident, which took place on Clifford Road in the suburb of Chancliff, west of Joburg, was promptly attended to by paramedics who arrived shortly after the shooting to find a large crowd.

ER24 spokesperson Russel Meiring confirmed the incident and said that the first two shots hit the woman’s abdomen and killed her while the man sustained a deadly shot to the head.

Captain Mavela Masondo, Gauteng’s SAPS spokesperson, said the victims had not yet been identified and they were still in the process of communicating the news to the families.

He said they were hoping to identify the man first because he was in a company car.

“We are hoping that the male will be identified, because the car belongs to Red Ants Security and we suspect that he is an employee of that company,” he added.