Police are investigating whether the fugitive French couple killed during a shootout on a Sutherland farm on Thursday were given a chance to surrender.
The investigation - which Sutherland police say will take up to three months - will also determine whether Philippe Meniere, 60, and Agnes Jeanne Jardel, 55, killed themselves or were shot dead by police.
The two had been on the run for six days after they had shot dead student constable Jacob Boleme and wounded his colleague, Warrant Officer Glenwall du Toit.
The two policeman had last Friday accompanied farm owner Gerhardus du Plessis and his two sons to the Hardie farm to confiscate the couple’s guns and evict them from the house in which they had lived, rent-free, for 12 years.
The building in which the couple eventually died is only 500m from the Hardie farmhouse.
A combination of dogged police work, hi-tech tracking instruments and a tip-off from a resident led police to the derelict farm building that would become the scene of a final showdown between officers and the couple, whom they had been tracking all week.
Just before noon on Thursday, heavily armed officers moved in and opened fire on the building.
When the shooting ended and the booming echo of stun grenades faded, police entered the building and found two bodies.
Although the two bodies have not yet been formally identified, police say their search is over.
Sutherland police spokesman Colonel Hendrik Swart said police had first identified the building as a possible hide-out on Wednesday night.
Police helicopters scanned the area from the sky using infrared technology and had detected movement around the building.
Swart said it appeared that one of the pair had emerged from the house and it was at this point that the scanners picked them up.
Police decided not to move in immediately, Swart said.
Instead, they made a note of the old farmhouse as being a possible hide-out.
But before police could investigate on Thursday, a local woman reported hearing somebody in the building.
Swart said the woman, who sometimes lived in the house, had arrived and panicked when she realised there were people inside moving around.
The frightened woman ran out of the house and was hurrying up the road when she came across a police officer who was involved in the search.
He alerted about 10 fellow police officers who had been heading to the house to follow up on the previous night’s information.
They quickened their pace, called for back-up and quietly surrounded the building.
Officers who had been sitting in a press briefing, showing journalists the evidence they had seized from the couple’s home, rushedthe scene, with journalists following hot on their heels.
Minutes later, the Karoo quiet was shattered by the sound of bullets and stun grenades.
The standoff was brief; journalists at the scene watched the police lower their weapons and turn to each other, high-fiving and celebrating.
The bomb squad was called in to check that the building had not been booby-trapped. Once the all-clear was given, officers moved in and two bodies were removed on stretchers.
Autopsies would now determine whether the couple killed themselves or were killed by the police, Swart said.
Swart told the Cape Argus today that this would be “a lengthy process”.
“We have to conduct an extensive ballistics test, and statements will have to be taken from all policemen who entered the house.
“It will only be in a month, or two, or three, before we find this out. This process has to be respected.”
On Thursday farm owner Du Plessis said he was relieved the saga was over.
“At 8am, I suddenly had a feeling that something was going to happen today,” he said.
Meanwhile, the survival equipment seized from the couple’s home included medical supplies, bullets, weapon stands, lights and a book entitled Don’t Die in the Bundu. - Cape Argus