A frail 78-year-old woman threw herself between her knife-wielding son and his wife in a desperate attempt to save her life on Saturday night.
The heartbroken mother told the Herald this week that the love she had for her daughter-in-law was ‘immeasurable’.
‘I hope they give my son a life-sentence for taking Agnes’s life. I never want to see him again…’
According to her, she was awoken by the couple’s arguing when they came back from a family party.
‘I got up and went to see what the quarrel was about,’ she says.
‘I tried to mediate but he ignored me and took her by the hair and smashed her against a wall. I tried to intervene again but he grabbed me and threw me against the kitchen cupboards. It took me a while to get back up because I had a stroke recently and I am not strong,’ she says, almost as if apologising for not being able to do anything.
‘When I went back to the bedroom, their two-year-old daughter was crying and clinging to her mother trying to protect her. I saw him raising a sharp object in the air and immediately threw myself in between them and told him to rather stab me. I thought I had saved her, but he had already stabbed her when I was in the kitchen.’
Agnes Mooketsi suffered a fatal wound to her forehead, according to Const. Kelebogile Trom, Ikageng SAPS spokesperson. The paramedics declared her dead when the ambulance arrived.
Agnes’s mother-in-law says the 38-year-old suspect went to the police station to report the case and came back and cried his heart out when he realised what he had done.
‘I’m so sick right now, I am not even sure I will see the end of this year,’ she says in anguish.
The suspect’s 40-year-old sister described the couple’s relationship as ‘toxic’ and said they had been for countless counselling sessions.
‘But nothing helped. My brother went as far as secretly marrying another woman. We believe she was the one who brought on all these tragic events.
‘I warned Agnes to leave my brother but she loved him dearly, in spite of his wrongdoing and shortcomings,’ she said.
The family of the suspect described the deceased as warm-hearted, kind, and respectful. They say she was like their own child because she was an orphan who was raised by her grandfather in Bodibe near Mahikeng.
She leaves behind her 10-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter.
The 38-year-old suspect is currently in police custody.
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