Durban - A HUSBAND, a fiancé, and a best friend bade farewell to the women they loved. Three coffins lined the front of the Faith Revival Church in Phoenix, in them the bodies of Jane Govindsamy, 44, and her daughters Denisha, 22, and Rackelle, 16.
The women were killed - apparently at separate times - last Friday at their flat in Tasvir Mansions in Phoenix, allegedly by a man known to the family.
Jane’s husband, Sagren Burton Govindsamy, bowed over the coffins, kissing his wife and daughters before they left the church to be cremated.
Govindsamy had just come off the night shift last Thursday when he unsuccessfully tried to enter the flat. After resting at his mother’s home nearby, he returned to the flat in the morning and climbed through a window, to find Jane and Rackelle’s bodies.
A police sniffer dog found Denisha’s body stuffed in her cupboard, leaving her fiancé, Macaelin Padayachee, devastated.
Padayachee stood at the head of Denisha’s coffin and looked at her, surrounded by his family, who held him as he walked away, sobbing.
Said Pastor Mervin Reddy: “She had special plans for 2019. She was supposed to be engaged to Macaelin. The young couple planned their future.
“Now he sits here, mourning the loss of what could have been if she was still alive. Macaelin, I can’t tell you how sorry we are that the love of your life is no longer with you.”
Hundreds of mourners had come to pay tribute to the slain women, among them were pupils of the Rydalvale Secondary School, dressed in their uniforms, to pay their respects to their classmate, Rackelle.
The teenager’s close friend, Kameel Naidoo, said: “They say no one is perfect, but for me Rackelle was the exception. She was a special person, the nicest person I’ve ever met.”
The pair attended the school prom together in April.
“She loved unicorns. She spread joy in all our lives just as a unicorn would. I think we should use Rackelle as an example of how we act towards each other,” he said.
The triple-murder suspect, who was arrested by police last Friday, was set to appear at the Verulam Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday but fainted in the holding cells, minutes before being called to the dock.
He is expected to appear in court on Wednesday.