{"id":20431,"date":"2014-10-23T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-23T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/echonews.sites.caxton.co.za\/20431\/murder-mystery-unfolds\/"},"modified":"2014-10-27T15:50:37","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T13:50:37","slug":"murder-mystery-unfolds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/news-headlines\/2014\/10\/23\/murder-mystery-unfolds\/","title":{"rendered":"Murder mystery unfolds"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two proper rain storms on Tuesday and Wednesday did nothing to assist the police in collecting clues on the scene.<\/p>\n

The SAPS were hesitant on Thursday to say whether the body had been dumped there, or if the person was murdered on the spot.<\/p>\n

Sweeping veld fires, coupled with the rain, made it almost impossible to conclude whether it is the remains of a male or female.<\/p>\n

An inquest docket has been opened and w\/o Lize de Witt confirmed that murder is being investigated.<\/p>\n

The grim discovery was made by a member of the public around 20:00 following the storm.<\/p>\n

\"botshabelo<\/a><\/p>\n

Access control at Botshabelo has been non existent since the land was restituted to the Botshabelo Community Development Trust, adding to police’s suspicion that the body may have been dumped there.<\/p>\n

It was found in a grassy area next to a unkept secondary road heading towards the Klein Olifants River, fueling suspicions that the deceased may have been transported to the spot.<\/p>\n

Botshabelo has become such a ghost town that whoever dumped the body, or murdered the deceased, could do so without being detected.<\/p>\n

A full forensic investigation will now ensue to confirm the sex, age and possible cause of death, despite the fact that only the skeletal remains have been found.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The burnt remains of a human was found close to the river at Botshabelo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":20432,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"Gerhard Rheeder","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news-headlines"],"category_labels":{"Category":"News","SubCategory":"Local news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/middelburg-observer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}