I saw my dad shoot mom, says girl (Soweto, South Africa)

Seems dad JACOB LEBAKENG shot his wife dead, and then himself--all in front of their 5-year-old daughter. Whatta mensch....

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=15&art_id=vn20100901060719595C542550

I saw my dad shoot mom, says girl
September 01 2010 at 07:12AM

By OMPHITLHETSE MOOKI

"Dad shot mom. She was running and saying 'You see what you did to me?' She then fell and dad shot himself."

These are the chilling words a five-year-old girl related to shocked family members and neighbours after her father allegedly shot her mother dead and turned the gun on himself in Devland, near Soweto, yesterday.

A crowd gathered outside Jacob and Nomsa Lebakeng's house last night, about eight hours after the couple's daughter had been awakened by gunshots and ran to a neighbour's house for help.

"It was horrifying? terrifying. Whatever we saw, I don't want to see again," said Tebogo Lebakeng, 24.

He had rushed to his parents' home yesterday morning after a cousin phoned him, to be greeted by the sight of his parents' lifeless, bloodied bodies lying outside their kitchen.

"The pain is unimaginable. You can't explain the pain to a person who has never been there," Lebakeng said.

Along with other relatives, Lebakeng was still trying to understand the deaths.

His parents, he said, had appeared fine when he visited them on Monday.

"No one could have foreseen this. In front of us, mom and dad were a loving, normal couple. I came here on Monday and drove my dad to work. He was okay? his usual self."

The last thing his 50-year-old father said to him when he dropped him at work was "Drive safely, my boy."

Lebakeng's first thought when he arrived at the house yesterday was about his little sister's well-being. "She's in trauma. We got her some counselling to try and help."

His aunt Maki was equally shocked. She last spoke to Nomsa on Sunday, and nothing could have prepared her for what she witnessed yesterday.

Her brother lived for his family and loved his wife dearly, she said.

Soweto police spokesman Captain Phillemon Khorombi said police were still trying to piece together what had happened to make the man snap.

"Our main witness is a child who is five years old," he said.