Manenberg police arrested a 24-year-old woman last Tuesday on a charge of murdering her newborn baby girl.
According to Manenberg police station’s spokesman, Captain Ian Bennett, the woman was alone at her home in Tambo Village on Tuesday August 8, when she gave birth to the baby girl.
A family member came home and noticed that her stomach was “flat” and wanted to know where the baby was, but she had no reasonable answer.
The family member then called the police and when they arrived and interrogated her, she allegedly admitted to giving birth, cutting the umbilical cord and suffocating the baby. She then allegedly brought the baby’s body out of the bathroom, wrapped in a blanket.
Accordingtopolicethe woman was sentenced in the Paarl Regional Court last year to eight years suspended for five years for concealment of birth after hiding the birth of her dead baby son whom she carried full term.
The 24-year-old woman also has two other children, a daughter, 3, and a son, 7.
A case of murder has been opened for investigation. The woman appeared in the Athlone Magistrate’s Court on Thursday August 10 and will be reappearing on Friday August 18.
She is currently being held at Pollsmoor Prison.
