Daughter, 18, charged with murder after mom found strangled

An 18-year-old daughter who reported her mother as a missing person has been arrested after her mother was found dead along the R721 Kroonstad/Vredefort road.

SAPS regional spokesperson for the Freestate, Brigadier Motantsi Makhele, said that police had found the woman’s mother’s body along the road on Sunday 24 of October. Police arrested her daughter on Wednesday 27 October.

“Her arrest emanated from an inquest docket, which was opened after discovery of the body of her 46-year-old mother. Her decomposed body could not yet be identified at the time of discovery, and was taken to the state mortuary where later the family assisted with identification,” Makhele said.

Makhele said that the subsequent police investigation had revealed that the deceased woman was in fact linked to a missing person case that her 18-year-old daughter had opened with the local police on Tuesday, 19 October 2021. 

“She alleged that she last saw her mother alive on Thursday 14 October 2021. A post mortem conducted as part of ongoing investigation determined the cause of death as strangulation,” Makhele said.

Evidence leads police to daughter and her boyfriend

Makhele said that the police had then changed the inquest docket to a murder case. 

He said that the police had later found out that the daughter was allegedly implicated in the murder according to evidence that detectives had recovered at her home in Brentpark, Kroonstad during their investigation. 

She was arrested on Wednesday, 27 October 2021.  

“On the same day, the investigation led the members to her 19-year-old boyfriend  residing at Morewag in Kroonstad.  It is suspected that he was also involved in this case,” Makhele said.

He said that both suspects, aged 18 and 19, were expected to appear in the Kroonstad Magistrates’ Court to face a charge of murder on Friday, 29 October 2021.