Missing student found dead
Her body badly decomposed Mom identifies her by underwear Twin brother devastated
TWENTY days after her kidnapping, Philasande Ngum was found dead in President Park, Midrand.
Police broke the tragic news of the discovery of Philasande’s body to her elder sister Phumeza on Wednesday.
A visibly upset Catherine Ngum, Philasande’s mother, said yesterday: “The police called my daughter yesterday [Wednesday] and told her construction workers found a body in an open field. The clothes matched those that Philasande was wearing when she disappeared.”
The following morning, police escorted Philasande’s elder sister Phumeza and Ngum to the Hillbrow state mortuary where they had to identify her body.
“Her body was badly decomposed. It was not easy to identify her. As I was approaching the corpse, I immediately identified her underwear, ” Ngum said.
The mother said she also identified her by her legs as they looked like her father’s. She added that her body was so badly decomposed that her fingers and nose had fallen off.
“I suspect they did this [killed her] on the day she disappeared because of how she looked,” Ngum said.
The grieving mother is now faced with making funeral arrangements for tomorrow.
“She looks bad, that is why we want to hurry up and bury her on Saturday,” she said.
Gauteng police spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Lungelo Dlamini confirmed Ngum’s statements.
“The body was found in an open veld in President Park, Midrand. A murder case has been opened. The circumstances of her death are still being investigated.”
Dlamini said they suspected Philasande was killed where she was found.
The postmortem is still being conducted and a cause of death has yet to be established, but Ngum said there were two obvious wounds on her daughter’s body.
“There ’ s a small wound on her right side, which police said looked like a bullet wound, and a big hole on her neck on the left side,” Ngum described.
Dlamini added: “Forensic investigation is underway to determine how she was killed. At this stage no one has been arrested and police investigation is continuing.”
Philasande’s twin brother, Mkhuseli, was devastated on hearing about his sister’s death.
“It is a very difficult time right now.
“It feels like I lost a part of me. She was my twin. With God’s grace and with time I will be fine,” Mkhuseli said.
He said the last time he spoke to his sister was on the phone the day before she disappeared, and she was busy doing an assignment with a friend – so they didn’t speak for long.
Sowetan reported on Tuesday of Philasande’s disappearance from the Boulders shopping mall in Midrand on May 3.
Philasande was a second-year psychology student at the Midrand Graduate Institute.
She went to the Boulders shopping mall just after her classes ended at about 2pm on that fateful day.
She was allegedly abducted at the mall.
Ngum said she didn’t want to hold any grudges against the police or the person responsible for her daughter’s murder.
“I want to close my ears to all those things because they won ’ t bring my daughter back.
“They will delay my healing. Right now I’m still in a dream. All I want to do is bury my daughter and heal,” she said.
Philasande will be laid to rest tomorrow in the Kagiso Cemetery on the West Rand. –