Parents hacked: son held
Only child arrested after living with bodies for a week
ACOUPLE met a grisly end in their modest Phoenix home after being hacked with a bush knife and left to decompose for more than a week as their only child, who lived with them, apparently carried on life as normal.
The bodies of Shoba Singh, 50, and Prakash “Mama” Singh, 56, a former police reservist who was bedridden after suffering a stroke in July last year, were found in their Centenary Park home on Monday afternoon when concerned relatives investigated after being unable to contact them.
Their 21-year-old unemployed son has been arrested and is expected to appear in the Verulam Magistrate’s Court today.
Shocked neighbours gathered at the crime scene on Monday, baffled about what had gone wrong with a normal family.
In order to supplement their income, the couple ran a tuck shop from their home.
A police source said the gruesome discovery was made after neighbours and relatives questioned the son about the whereabouts of his parents.
He allegedly told them they had gone to KwaDukuza (Stanger) to visit family.
“A relative found this to be suspicious and decided to visit the home. When the son saw the relative he ran out of the house and jumped over the fence and fled.
“The relative jumped over the fence and got into the yard. Through the window he saw the couple’s bodies.
“Prakash was lying on the bed and Shoba was lying on the floor.”
He said the relative contacted police immediately.
“The scene was horrific and the smell of the decomposing bodies was unbearable,” the source said. “One of our officers who knows the family well managed to find the son who was hiding at a nearby pool. The officer asked him where the couple were and again he said they had been visiting relatives.”
The source said a possible motive for the attacks was that the mother had planned to book her son into a drug rehabilitation facility.
“The post-mortem results revealed that the couple had been hacked on their heads.”
Neighbour Raj Mayalal said he lived next door to the family for almost 25 years.
“They were a loving, bubbly couple who were always willing to help anyone. We watched the son grow up.
“He was very quiet and he kept to himself,” he said. “When we did not see Shoba we tried to call her but our calls went unanswered. We never suspected something so tragic had happened.”
Mayalal said after Prakash suffered a stroke he used to take Shoba and her son around to run their errands.
Another resident, who wished to remain anonymous, said she watched the son grow up and described him as shy and respectful.
“He never misbehaved and was also polite. He was friends with my children and was in and out of my house but in the past few months I noticed a change in him. From being a neat and tidy child he started looking untidy and unkempt.”
She said when she questioned her adult children further they said that he claimed to be seeing people.
“My children told me that when they would hang out he would say people were standing around them and when the kids looked around no one was there.
“I don’t know what was going on with him but this should be an eye-opener for other parents.”
The head of KZN VIP Security, Glen Naidoo, described the couple as “helpful”.
“Prakash was a former police officer and he worked to help the community in any way he could. His death is a great loss to the community of Phoenix.”
Umesh Singh of the Phoenix CPF said it was sad that while people were trying to protect themselves from criminals, criminal acts were happening in their own homes.
Police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Thulani Zwane said a case of murder was being investigated.