The sight of three fully-formed foetuses, presumably, triplets, tossed out of a car in Station Road, Goodwood, has horrified residents on whose doorstep this happened.
Northern News has seen a picture of the shocking find. It is too graphic to publish, but from the position of the small bodies and afterbirth in the road, it appears they were thrown from a moving vehicle.
Zaidah Coetzee and her grown-up children were returning home on Friday February 24, at around 11.40pm, when they saw something close to their driveway.
At first she thought it was puppies, but her son, who was driving, said: “No, Mommy, it’s babies.”
Her daughter, Sadia, who was also in the car, called Goodwood SAPS, whom, she said, had arrived quickly. The Coetzees parked their car to block traffic and stop other vehicles riding over the babies’ remains.
“I’m a mother. To see something like that is the worst,” said Zaidah. On Sunday, the family said they had had little sleep since seeing the grisly scene.
Zaidah Coetzee said the babies had been fully developed with the umbilical cord still attached. The placenta was lying next to them.
“Coming home to see that… I can’t sleep. Closing your eyes, you see it,” she said.
She thinks it could be the result of an unwanted pregnancy of a “youngster, or a drug addict”. She estimated the pregnancy to have been six or seven months along.
Her daughter, Sadia, said it was “hard to take out of my head”. She said that even the police officers at the scene had been shocked.
Neighbour Mogamat Sam said he had been on his way to buy electricity when he saw a parcel thrown from the window of car speeding past.
When he returned later, the police were there.
“Then I heard it was babies,” he said. Mr Sam said it was hard to stomach.
“I felt nauseous. That smell alone… like a dead dog,” he said, pointing with his fingers, he estimated each foetus had been about 10 to 15cm long.
The Coetzees also recalled a pungent smell in the air – another thing they could not forget about the gruesome find.
They said Station Road residents were alarmed that something like that could happen there.
They said that once police had cleared the scene, by about 2am, neighbours had come out of their homes to express their shock.
“Cars could’ve driven over it,” said Ms Coetzee.
Goodwood police spokesman Captain Waynne Theunis said they were investigating a case of concealment of birth.
He said a witness had seen someone throw a parcel out of a vehicle.
“It was dark and he could not see any registration number or make of the vehicle,” said Captain Theunis.
* Anyone with information is asked to call Goodwood SAPS at 021 592 4430 or Crimestop at 0860 010 111.