The daughter of John Commins, who was murdered in his family home, says the family is confident the police will find those responsible.
|||Cape Town - The daughter of John Commins, who was murdered in his family home a few days ago, says the family is confident the police will find the men responsible.
“We all believe that the police will do everything that they can to find the killers,” his daughter Donne Commins told the Cape Argus.
“We believe that they have a lot of leads and that they will find (the culprits).”
Commins, who played for the Western Province Cricket Union in the 1960s, is the youngest brother of Western Province CEO Kevin Commins and the uncle of former Proteas cricketer John Commins.
On Tuesday night, the 71-year-old was at his Newlands home with his wife Cherie when three men climbed through the window and tied up the couple in separate rooms.
The home invaders ransacked the house and made off with money and jewellery.
Cherie managed to untie herself and make her way to Commins’s bedroom, but he was already dead.
The police said they had found no sign of visible injury and they believe Commins had been suffocated. But Donne said there were “definitely signs of a struggle”.
The suspects have yet to be identified.
“No one has been arrested in connection with this case yet,” Lieutenant Colonel Andrè Traut said yesterday.
The Newlands Residents Association said that they were shocked and saddened by Commins’s death.
“We understand this is the third murder in the Claremont precinct in recent months and this combined with an increase in armed robberies in the area over the past few months is of great concern to all residents in Newlands and surrounding areas,” said the association.
“We appeal to the SAPS to review the policing deployment for the Claremont precinct. The area is far too large for the current level of deployment.”
Commins, who was also a successful businessman and a philanthropist, leaves Cherie, Donne, his son Greg - who has arrived from Los Angeles where he lives - and three grandchildren.
His funeral will be held at the St Michael’s Catholic Church in Rouwkoop Road, Rondebosch, at 3pm on Thursday.
Donne, who is the agent for former cricketer Mark Boucher and cricketers JP Duminy and Albie Morkel, said she had been overwhelmed by the support she had received from the “cricketing family”.
“The people who have called me or SMSed are literally everyone I have ever worked with,” she said.
She said Dave Richardson, Ali Bacher, England cricketer Kevin Pietersen and the head of the IPL, Sundar Raman, had lent her their support.
Cape Argus