Mother recounts delivery of daughter’s dead body
It’s Saturday morning in 7de Laan, an impoverished informal settlement in the hilly town of Outjo. Wilhemina Hanes woke up at 04:00 and had just made a fire outside her shack when her son-in-law Piet Khamuseb, who is only three years younger than her, showed up.
Khamuseb is 42 and Hanes 45. He was in a relationship with Hanes’ daughter Duffie, who Hanes gave birth to when she was just 15. Duffie, who lived with Khamuseb in the similarly improverished location of Soweto at the town, was aged 30.
“Here is the person I was looking for,” Khamuseb told Hanes, as he parked a wheelbarrow with what seemed to be Duffie on board.
“He immediately left but I did not know at that point whether [Duffie] was alive or not as I did not really pay attention to it.”
Unbothered at the time, Hanes went back inside her shack but quickly reflected back to the scene outside and wondered about the state her daughter was in. Out of curiosity, she returned outside to check on her daughter.
“I turned her around and that is when I saw blood and my daughter was not responding at all. I panicked and I just sat there,” she said.
‘I found her like that’
As her thoughts raced while she stared at her daughter’s lifeless body, Khamuseb returned.
“I asked what happened to my daughter and he replied that he found her like that. I just kept quiet, and he left for a second the time. He returned again later and said ‘that’s just how life is’.”
Khamuseb, who made national headlines for Duffie’s heinous killing and delivering her body to her mother in a wheelbarrow, appeared in court on Monday before Magistrate Immanuel Udjombala.
He was not granted bail and the matter was postponed to 14 June.
Preliminary investigations show that Duffie was assaulted with an iron bar at their home.
Please help
For Hanes, who has no national indentity documents, the pain of her daughter’s gruesome murder lingers.
She is calling on government to assist her with documents to help her obtain a death certificate.
Outjo mayor Johannes Bapello has condemned the heineous act and started a donation campaign at the municipality to assist the family during these trying times.
Khamuseb is 42 and Hanes 45. He was in a relationship with Hanes’ daughter Duffie, who Hanes gave birth to when she was just 15. Duffie, who lived with Khamuseb in the similarly improverished location of Soweto at the town, was aged 30.
“Here is the person I was looking for,” Khamuseb told Hanes, as he parked a wheelbarrow with what seemed to be Duffie on board.
“He immediately left but I did not know at that point whether [Duffie] was alive or not as I did not really pay attention to it.”
Unbothered at the time, Hanes went back inside her shack but quickly reflected back to the scene outside and wondered about the state her daughter was in. Out of curiosity, she returned outside to check on her daughter.
“I turned her around and that is when I saw blood and my daughter was not responding at all. I panicked and I just sat there,” she said.
‘I found her like that’
As her thoughts raced while she stared at her daughter’s lifeless body, Khamuseb returned.
“I asked what happened to my daughter and he replied that he found her like that. I just kept quiet, and he left for a second the time. He returned again later and said ‘that’s just how life is’.”
Khamuseb, who made national headlines for Duffie’s heinous killing and delivering her body to her mother in a wheelbarrow, appeared in court on Monday before Magistrate Immanuel Udjombala.
He was not granted bail and the matter was postponed to 14 June.
Preliminary investigations show that Duffie was assaulted with an iron bar at their home.
Please help
For Hanes, who has no national indentity documents, the pain of her daughter’s gruesome murder lingers.
She is calling on government to assist her with documents to help her obtain a death certificate.
Outjo mayor Johannes Bapello has condemned the heineous act and started a donation campaign at the municipality to assist the family during these trying times.
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