Summerstrand double murder: wife strangled

DETECTIVES are still piecing the puzzle together following the double murder in Summerstrand at the weekend.

Yesterday, police revealed that while both had been assaulted, Andre Saaiman, 65, was killed with an axe while his wife Lidia, 69, was strangled.

The couple’s bodies were found inside a locked room in their Scott Street home shortly before 8am on Monday.

Police suspect the motive to be robbery.

Yesterday, police were still trying to track down the gardener who lived on the premises and is a person of interest in the murder.

Police forensic experts worked until late on Monday gathering evidence inside the house.

Police spokesman Warrant Officer Alwin Labans said: “We have discovered that she [Lidia] appears to have died from suffocation after being strangled with a cable tie.”

The postmorten will be carried out today.

Items stolen from the house include the couple’s cellphones, firearms and money.

The Saaimans’ bodies were found after their daughter, Leandra Pickard, alerted authorities that the house had been ransacked and the couple was missing at about 7.30am on Monday.

Police and security officials found the couple dead on the study floor after kicking open the locked door.

“The CCTV footage is still being analysed and suspicious vehicles and people eliminated,” Labans said.