Weekend Argus (Saturday Edition)
House of ‘freezer horrors’
City’s fear of gunshop owner accused of genital mutilation
BLOEMFONTEIN is on edge. No one in the city, not even the police, is prepared to talk, not in public and certainly not about the man accused of hacking off the genitals of women and girls and keeping them in his freezer.
“That man is dangerous. People are dying,” an employee at the SAPS provincial office warned of Peter Frederiksen, the Danish gunshop owner accused of genital mutilation.
A car guard near Frederiksen’s Impala gunshop hid herself from prying eyes. She knew, but wouldn’t speak.
At Frederiksen’s shop, soldiers in uniform and civilians walked in and out.
A week ago, Frederiksen’s wife, Tshidi Molise, was gunned down outside her home in Lesotho where she had fled, apparently for protection. She was the main witness in the case. She was the one who could outline why her husband – the father of her two children – allegedly mutilated the private parts of 21 women, including her own.
The body parts were placed inside a freezer at their Langenhoven Park home in Bloemfontein.
Residents are keeping quiet, waiting for Wednesday, when they will learn whether the magistrate will grant Frederiksen bail.
“We’re waiting for the day. All hell will break loose,” said a woman sitting at a bus stop.
“What he did is bad. We are now scared of hiking (asking for lifts),” said another woman.
Not far from where they were congregated is Frederiksen’s townhouse, where he lived with his wife. Curtains were drawn. The grass was unkempt and children’s toys lay scattered about.
Frederiksen is thought to have arrived in South Africa 10 years ago.
“Evil lurks in that house. It’s riddled with demons. Pray before you go there,” a police officer said.
Frightened neighbours this week signed a petition for Frederiksen not to return.
“I’m scared. I don’t think I could live here if he were to come back,” said a neighbour who moved in just days ago.
Grass cutters Malefetsana Realotsa and Tshiliso Mokoena had met Frederiksen a year ago after he asked them to mow his lawn.
“He gave us a piece job. One look at the man and you would see that he is a tsotsi. The woman and children were always inside the house. He paid us with alcohol,” said Realotsa.
Neither of them knew what lurked inside the house, however, where Frederiksen is thought to have illegally operated on many women. It is believed that most of them worked at his gunshop and are from Lesotho.
The process was simple. Frederiksen would ask the women to clean his house. Once there he would humour them, give them wine and have sex with them.
After that he would allegedly introduce the idea of cutting their clitorises. They obliged.
“What would be done in the mountains for six months for female circumcision took Peter only two hours... perhaps this is why they agreed,” the officer said.
The case is described as the worst in the city since the 2009 Pakistani Mafia case in which seven Pakistanis were tried for poisoning a Lesotho businessman, and murdering four rival gang members.
Police in Lesotho are preparing to close the docket in Tshidi’s murder case. But police in South Africa find this baffling.
“We know of all the suspects. Why would this be done?” the police source questioned.
This week Fredriksen allegedly indicated through his advocate that he wanted his two children back. They are in the care of social services.
It is unclear whether Frederiksen has any family in the country.
But police made it clear that he is feared and well-connected in Lesotho.
As the sun sets in Bloemfontein, many think about Frederiksen’s victims.
“We don’t know whether they will now come forward since Tshidi has been killed,” a police officer said.