On Thursday, November 13 four cows went missing from Herman’s farm.
“We have a small dairy, the ‘skelms’ took four of my cows and just last week stole at least 10 cows from my neighbour, Willie Faber,” said Ms Abie Herman.
Last month WITBANK NEWS published an article about how thieves had stolen Herman’s cattle and slaughtered them near Kromdraai.
“We only realised that there were cows missing when we started milking the other cows. We immediately began searching and found that our boundary fences had been cut. We found the tracks of the four cows and began following them,” said Herman.
At the same time one of Herman’s neighbours, known as Jacob, was travelling from Vosman and neared Kromdraai Mine, where he noticed the tracks of four cows.
“He knew someone’s cows had been stolen but wasn’t sure whose. He drove by our farm, when he saw our workers searching the fields for the missing cows, he told us about the tracks he had seen,” she added.
Together they followed the tracks and came upon a gruesome scene. The cows had been slaughtered, their heads placed on the ground alongside their innards and their meat stacked in a pile.
The police Stock Theft Unit arrived and assisted Herman with opening a case of stock theft.
One of the farmers staying alongside the mine continued to search for the cows as the others left the area.
The four alleged cattle thieves returned to the site where they had killed the cows and were apprehended by the farmer and mine security.
The cattle thieves were arrested and spent the weekend in custody, they were to appear in Witbank Magistrate’s Court on Monday, November 17, but were released with a warning due to the lack of evidence against them.
“When we arrived on scene the suspects did confess to us that they had stolen the cows and named the farmers that they were stealing from. They even showed us where the cows were being slaughtered and where they had hid the pangas,” said Insp Mpho Mokoena, Witbank SPCA.
According to Insp Mokoena, one of the suspects admitted his guilt to the SPCA and openly stated that he would confess in court, however there were no magistrates available due to a lack of staff on the day and the suspects were released.
