Pretoria - The daughter of a 70-year-old woman who was murdered in her Equestria home, east of Pretoria, two years ago, told the Pretoria High Court about her nightmare ordeal when she discovered the lifeless body of her mother in the bedroom of her townhouse.
Ute Maria Wiing was strangled or suffocated in her unit in the Silver Mist complex in Libertas Street.
When her daughter, Patricia Heinze, discovered her body, it was lying among clothes and other items pulled out of her cupboards and scattered in disarray. Her hands and feet were bound together and clothing was stuffed into her mouth.
Three accused – Frans Madiba, 28, Amos Foromane Mokgabudi, 27, both of Mamelodi, and Bashimane Brian Mathebe (no age given), of Dennilton – on Tuesday pleaded not guilty to murder and robbery with aggravating circumstances.
Mathebe also faces a firearm-related charge. A Z88 pistol was allegedly found in his house.
The men did not give an explanation of plea and elected to remain silent regarding their defence.
It is alleged that the three men broke into the house of Wiing on the night of May 27, 2010, entering through a window.
They allegedly overpowered Wiing in her bedroom and tied her up, before fleeing in her vehicle, packed with goods from the house.
Heinze testified that she and her two sons had dinner with her mother on the evening of the incident. She left early, leaving one of her sons at her mother’s place, but she fetched him around 10.30pm. It was the last time she had seen her mother alive.
She she tried to phone two days later. As there was no reply, she went to her mother’s house. She looked through the window of the ground floor and everything seemed in order. She noticed her mother’s car was not there and thought she had gone out to visit friends.
She returned to the house later in the afternoon as one of her sons wanted to use her mother’s computer. Heinze entered the house with her own key and noticed the television set placed on the floor, with three wine bottles next to it. She wondered how her mother could have picked the TV set up. She then noticed in the kitchen that the door to the freezer was open.
The food they’d had for dinner two days earlier was still on the table.
Heinze said she went up to the second floor and saw everything was in disarray. Clothes and items had been pulled out of the cupboards and the computer was disconnected. She noticed her mother’s car keys were on a table and realised she could not have left with her car.
Heinze said she pushed open the door to the main bedroom and saw her mother on the floor, with clothing scattered around.
“She was tied up. I felt her hands and they were cold. Her face was black and blue and her hands were blue. She was cold all over.”
Pretoria News