Pretoria – A 27-year-old mother of two who was on the run for almost a week after allegedly killing her two children by putting rat poison in their food handed herself over to police on Saturday, Gauteng police said.
A seven-year-old girl and her two-year-old brother were found by their father in their mother’s home in Mokone block, Stinkwater, north of Pretoria on May 21.
Temba – near Hammanskraal in northern Gauteng – police spokesperson Constable Herman Moremi said police found rat poison next to the bed where the children were found in a “sleeping position”.
“When speaking to the police in the holding cells, she [the mother] alleged that indeed she used rat poison to kill her kids and also attempted to kill herself by also eating the poison,” he said.
“She poured poison in the food during breakfast and they all ate the food. She was surprised to survive the poison and decided to run away to Bela Bela where she hid at a park for two days and [then] came back to Ramotse village in Temba.”
The woman heard on the news that she was wanted in connection with the murder of her children and decided to hand herself over to police. She had been charged with two counts of murder and was expected to appear in the Moretele Magistrate’s Court on Monday, Moremi said.