They argued and he threatened to kill her family. She thought he was joking. The bullet holes tell a different story.
|||Cape Town - A Strand family thought it was an empty threat by a jilted lover, but it became reality on Sunday when a Somerset West policeman shot his girlfriend and a neighbour before turning the gun on himself.
Nomvuyo Zondiwe said her niece, Thabisa Mngoma, 28, was shot dead on Sunday by Annesin Chachane, 43, who she had been seeing for the past few years.
Zondiwe said Chachane was a married man with a family in Strand.
The lovers had a four-year-old son, Ovayo, who was with his mother when the shooting took place.
Zondiwe was not at home in Lwandle at the time.
“I was called to the house at around 6pm and told that there had been a shooting in the yard. When I got home there were police everywhere.”
Zondiwe said Mngoma had been in the house with Ovayo and her younger sister, Vuyokazi Mngoma, 18, when Chachane arrived at 5pm.
Chachane and Mngoma got into an argument. Chachane went outside and told his friends, who were waiting for him in the car, to leave.
He came back and “started shooting at Thabisa who was lying on the bed”.
Vuyokazi said she took Ovayo and ran to a neighbour. They heard about seven shots.
Zondiwe said Chachane shot a neighbour, who they knew only as Kwekwesi, in the stomach before he shot himself. Kwekwesi is in Tygerberg Hospital.
“He shot Thabisa in the head. There was blood everywhere.”
Zondiwe pointed to bullet holes in the wall, and said they had had to wash the blood-soaked mattress.
She described her niece as a quiet person who kept to herself.
Chachane had also seemed like a nice man, said Zondiwe.
“He used to come around to see her and Ovayo, but we last saw him here in June.
“Then he came here last week to threaten her, and he said he would kill everyone in this family… but we thought he was joking.”
Police spokesman Captain FC van Wyk confirmed the shooting. Police were investigating a case of murder and of attempted murder.
neo.maditla@inl.co.za
Cape Argus