THE community of the southern border town of Ariamsvlei in //Kharas region was on Wednesday shaken by the heart-wrenching death of a three-year-old girl and 10-month-old girl allegedly killed by their uncle.
//Kharas police crime investigations coordinator Chrispin Mubebo on Thursday confirmed that Rudolf Christiaan, aged 51, handed himself to the police the following day after he had allegedly committed the murders.
According to him, preliminary investigations show the suspect allegedly folded the mattress on which they were sleeping and suffocated the children.
“We suspect he folded the children in the mattress on which they were sleeping and sat on it while they were in it, causing their deaths” he explained.
The incident, said Mubebo, happened at the Christiaan family home situated in the Vergenoeg location just before midnight on Tuesday or during the early hours of Wednesday morning.
He identified the deceased children as Merlize Maria Kooper and Xavier Christiaan.
The suspect was remanded in police custody following his brief appearance on charges of murder read with domestic violence in the Karasburg Magistrate’s Court on Friday.
The 10-month baby’s brother Paulus Christiaan, aged 16, said he tried to intervene and stop his uncle when he folded the children into the mattress before sitting on top of it, shouting at them “bastards, where are your parents?”
“I told him, don’t do that to other people’s children….I tried to move him off from the mattress, but ran away to call my mother, who was not at home then, when my uncle started fighting me” he said.
According to him, the two children were still alive when he returned home with his mother.
When visited the grieving family’s home on Friday, tears rolled down the suspect’s 73-year-old mother Rachel Christiaan, as she sat brooding over the tragedy that had hit the family.
“I am so hurt, it hurts,” she said in a broken voice.
The mother of nine believes her son committed the horrendous crime of allegedly killing her grandchildren to punish her for refusing to give him N$50 he demanded from her social grant money of N$1300 she had received on Tuesday.
“I told him, I could only give him N$20, but he did not want to take it, and attempted to pick a quarrel with me. I just ignored him, that’s why he might have decided to vent his frustration on the children,” she said.
“He is my darling child, I don’t know why he did this to me,” she said referring to the murder of her grandchildren by their uncle.
“What he did hurts, but I already miss him,” she added.
The elderly mother said she accepted the death of her grandchildren, and stressed she still loves her son despite the pain he had caused the family.
“I have forgiven him… the Bible encourages us to forgive one another,” she added.
The grieving mother of the 10-month-old girl, Elizabeth Christiaan (32), also said she had accepted the death of her daughter at the hands of her brother.
“I will forgive him, but it will be hard to forget,” she added.
Petrus Arnold, a cousin of the suspect and father of the three-year-old victim, said he had also forgiven the alleged killer of his child.
“I surrender all unto God,” he remarked.
Arnold said he was not at the settlement when his daughter was murdered as he was doing some odd jobs at a nearby farm.
“On Monday I phoned home to ask if everything was okay…. and the second day following the phone call, I just got news that my daughter had been murdered,” the grieving father said.
Family members described the suspect as a quiet person who had mood swings.
The local settlement office has started fundraising to help with the funeral expenses of the children, expected to be laid to rest this week.
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