Johannesburg - While South Africa’s top cop was revealing crime stats, an 86-year-old woman was murdered in her home in Craighall Park.
Rose Dowdle’s body was loaded into a mortuary van on Friday evening while her daughter Penny Jackson, who arrived from Cape Town to visit her, wept inconsolably.
Jackson last spoke to her mother at 9am promising to visit her that afternoon – but that was to be the last she heard her voice.
“I don’t think there is anything that can solve crime in this country,” she said furiously. “My mother has lived here since she was 21 and she didn’t want to leave.”
Police Commissioner Riah Phiyega and Police Minister Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko on Friday announced that murder and contact crimes incidents had increased – something that could not be described, according to an analyst, as a mere spike.
The Institute for Security Studies said the alarming increases in serious violent crime, including murder, attempted murder and aggravated robbery, should serve as a wake-up call for all South Africans.
“For the first time in democracy, we’ve had two consecutive years where murder has increased,” said Gareth Newham, head of the institute’s governance, crime and justice division.
“Murder had gone up by 650 cases in the previous cycle and in the period reported on on Friday, it had gone up again by 809 cases. That is four additional murders every day on average in the most recent financial year,” Newham said.
“It’s no longer a slight spike, this is a fundamental shift in violence that results in murder in South Africa, and it’s going up.”
He added that if statistics were released more often it would be to possible to track trends of what caused murders.
“It really is a bit late six months after we have seen dramatic rises in murder and robbery to tell the public that this has happened.
“If the statistics had been released regularly, these trends would have been picked up a year and a half ago,” he said.
In Gauteng the figures show an 11.2 percent increase in murder, 8.1 percent increase in attempted murder and 18.9 percent increase in robbery with aggravating circumstances. There was also a 22.5 percent increase in car-jacking, 4.4 percent increase in truck-jacking and 12.6 percent increase in robbery at residential premises.
Bank robberies increased by 1 000 percent and Gauteng also recorded the most incidents in this category overall.
SA Banking Risk Information Centre (Sabric) said it would work with banks, cash-in-transit companies and the police to bring down crime in the banking sector.
“It is only through such collaboration that we will ensure that the fight against organised crime is dealt with,” Sabric said.
“We believe that fighting crime is a collective responsibility and not only that of law enforcement.”
Meanwhile shocked Craighall Park residents told how they were alerted to the murder when the alleged killer of the elderly woman crashed Dowdle’s bakkie into two vehicles at the corner of Grosvenor and Rothesay streets.
Security patrolling the area then identified the car as belonging to Dowdle.
Yesterday neighbours described Dowdle as a “kind woman who loved her dogs and cats”.
“It’s really pitiful what’s happening these days with crime in our area,” said one neighbour. “These criminals are now picking on old people who cannot defend themselves.”
Police spokesman Colonel Khensani Magoai confirmed police were investigating a case of murder, house robbery and attempted vehicle theft.
She said it appeared that Dowdle was strangled.
Residents also appealed to an elderly man who chased Dowdle’s alleged killer after the crash to contact the Parkview police station on 011 486-5000.
*The most dangerous place to live in Gauteng is Temba, near Hammanskraal, which overtaken Tembisa township on the East Rand. The safest place is still Fairlands.
– Additional reporting by Craig Dodds.
Saturday Star