Cape Town - A family bloodbath rocked Mitchells Plain on Thursday, following a hostage drama in which a police officer killed his girlfriend and her mother before turning the gun on himself.
Detective Sergeant Granville Brooks, 41, who was stationed at Lentegeur Police Station’s Detective Unit, held his girlfriend, Charmaine Goliath, 27, and her parents captive at their house in Begonia Street, Lentegeur.
Charmaine and her mother, Susan April, 54, were both shot and killed, but her father survived the ordeal.
Neighbours and police sources say the couple had been dating for years, and apparently had a heated argument on Wednesday.
Brooks had been away for detective training in Oudtshoorn and returned home on Wednesday.
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The divorced cop returned to the house and was seen by Charmaine’s neighbours who say he even greeted them on Thursday morning.
But something went terribly wrong because they heard “four or five gunshots” ring out from the house a while later.
Police sources at the scene said Brooks shot Charmaine and her mother in a bedroom.
He then apparently took photographs of the tragic scene and sent the pictures to a colleague.
It is this that galvanised police into action who, at that stage, thought the family was still being held hostage.
Police snipers, Law Enforcement, forensics and ambulance teams were on the scene as negotiators tried to make contact with Brooks.
Brooks’ distraught mother was also there, begging cops to give her a chance to “talk him down”.
But little did they know that he was already dead, having apparently turned the gun on himself after killing the two women.
Their bodies were discovered when masked sniper teams fired teargas into the house and stormed in.
A police source says Charmaine’s father was unharmed. It is not clear where he was when his wife and daughter were murdered.
Meanwhile, Brooks’ traumatised mother was whisked away by police before the media could speak to her.
Captain FC van Wyk says they are investigating the circumstances surrounding the tragedy.
“According to information on hand, a 41-year-old police sergeant attached to the Lentegeur Detective Unit shot himself. Two women, aged 54 and 27, were also shot and killed. Currently we have opened a murder and inquest docket.”
A colleague of Brooks’, who cannot be named, says this came as a big shock for them.
“He was with this girl for a few years and he was married (before). This is so sad because we just lost a police member last week.”
Last week, Sergeant Bradley Franks, 53, shot himself inside his car in front of his girlfriend’s home in Scrabble Crescent, Morgenster. He was stationed in Kensington.
Relatives and cops say Franks was a good Samaritan who had served his community and could not say what had led to the family tragedy.