Police have wrong suspects for Dr Paul Meyer’s murder - widow

‘I told them countless times these are the wrong suspects -- but the police just won’t listen…’

Murdered: dr. Paul Meyer (38)

Sept 27 2009 -- Marietie Louw-Carstens reports in Beeld that Marilise, left, the 32-year-old widow of the murdered wildlife veterinarian Dr Paul Meyer, said the Mozambiquan suspects which police claim were her husband’s murderers, ‘are the wrong people’. But they refuse to listen to her, she told the newspaper.

The widow, left with orphaned baby son Paul-Wouter, who at the age of six weeks was kidnapped with his mom and his father murdered -- told Marietie Louw-Carstens that “she’d told the police countless times that those are not the men who attacked us, but they simply won’t listen to me…’

She was asked to identify four arrested suspects – three of whom have since somehow managed to ‘escape ‘ from the Gravelotte police-station cells in Limpopo by sawing through the cell-bars.

Pathetic Police Investigation:

The widow slammed the police investigation into her husband’s murder as ‘pathetic’.  “And then the police didn’t even let me know of the escape of these suspects. I had to hear it via friends and through the news media.’

• Three of the arrested men, Eddie Chauke (31), Marcy Nasser (30) and Rogero Thambale (29), all three from Mozambique, allegedly managed to get hold of a hacksaw which which they allegedly had sawn through the bars of their police-cell. The fourth suspect Alex Babunda, 31, is still in custody. They were arrested shortly after Dr Meyer’s gruesome murder and have been refused bail by the Phalaborwa magistrate’s court because all three men are from Mozambique.

Yet while one witness who saw these men from very close-by, namely Mrs Marilise Meyer,  insists that these arrested men were not the ones who had attacked and kidnapped her and her husband; and that these were not the men who had shot had husband while they were kidnapped -- the police insist that they had the right suspects in custody.

Dr Meyer was shot dead in the Selati nature reserve when he, his wife, their babyson Paul Wouter (six weeks at the time) and friends were attacked by a group of armed black men. The Meyer couple and their baby were kidnapped in one of Dr Meyer’s 4x4 bakkie, their friends were taken away by the kidnappers in another 4x4 bakkie belonging to the vet. Shortly before they were leaving the nature reserve’s gates, Dr Meyer was shot and his body was thrown from the bakkie in front of his wife and baby-son.

Murders rose by 7,9% in Limpopo:

Beeld enquired about the odd investigation with superintendent Mohale Ramatseba – who told them that they didn’t know whether the three escapees had been caught as yet. According to the latest available (18-month-old) SAPS crime statistics, the number of murders in Limpopo province has risen by 7,9% percent.

• http://www.beeld.com/Content/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/1928/9e69f10632e64f7f9cb47e3351c018ee/27-09-2009-10-13/%E2%80%98Ni%C3%A9_my_man_se_skieters%E2%80%99