Two days before he murdered her daughter, Zamumzi "Zola" Nombewu, a 35-year-old Cape Town police sergeant, phoned Mavis Sokutu to tell her: "You will hear about your daughter's death soon."
A worried Sokutu, who lives in the Eastern Cape, called her daughter Nontsikelelo Nombewu to tell her about the chilling phone call, but her daughter assured her that everything was fine.
Despite her daughter's words of reassurance, Sokutu couldn't ignore the call and left the Eastern Cape for Cape Town on Monday. But she was too late, arriving just hours after Nombewu had shot his wife dead.
At midday on Tuesday, when Nontsikeleo had arrived to fetch their two-year-old son from his Philippi creche, she was accosted by her husband. Nombewu abducted them, drove them to Khayelitsha, where he shot her with his service pistol.
After killing Nontsikelelo, Nombewu dropped off his son with his mother in Philippi and asked her to look after him.
He then hijacked three cars, shot two other people, one of them a police officer, before he turned the gun on himself.
Last night Sokutu, speaking from her daughter's home in Philippi, told the Cape Argus: "The murder of my daughter was premeditated."
Sokutu recalled the telephone conversation she had on Sunday with her son-in-law.
"A few days before the murder, I received a call from Zola. He told me I could soon expect to hear about the death of my daughter. I was so shocked I asked a friend to listen to him as he said it again.
"It's heartbreaking to think of how she died. Now her son must grow up without a mother or a father," she said, as she watched the little boy, unable to understand what had happened to his parents.
The child will remain in his grandmother's care until she returns to the Eastern Cape; then his aunt will take over as his guardian.
Sokutu described her daughter's marriage as stormy.
Nontiskelelo's husband was arrested for assaulting her last Friday. But he was released with a warning from the Philippi Magistrate's Court and told to appear at court on Tuesday.
Nombewu's younger brother, Phindile, said that while his brother was a good officer, he had a very bad temper.
"He told me a few days before the murder how his wife was out to destroy his life. But they patched things up and I thought everything was going fine. Never did I expect something like this to happen."
Nyanga police spokeswoman Ntomboxolo Sit****shi said Nomwebu "aided by three men" killed his wife before dropping off the car, with her body still inside, at a friend's house in Khayelitsha.
"From there he hijacked three vehicles as he made his way from Philippi to Gugulethu, then back to Philippi, shooting two other people in the process."
When police spotted him after the third hijacking, Nomwebu shot himself in the head before the officers could reach him.
Sit****shi confirmed that after killing his wife, Nombewu had dropped his son off at his mother's house and asked her to raise the boy.
The two families are now locked in a dispute to determine where the bodies will be buried.
The Nombewus want the couple to be buried side by side in Cape Town. But the Sokutus said they wanted to take their daughter's body back to the Eastern Cape.
They were expected to meet today to discuss the arrangements.
Nombewu would have marked his sixth year in the police next month. He joined the VIP Protection Unit two years ago.
Police spokesman Superintendent Vish Naidoo said Nombewu was not assigned to a specific minister and was deployed on an ad hoc basis.
The SA Police Union's Billy Daniels said the shooting revealed how much police officers were overworked. He said officers not only had to deal with death every day, but had to cope with demanding hours.
"Members of the police must rely on Employment Assistance Services as a support network. But we often see this unit as underemployed and overworked. Officials need to step in and ensure these get the necessary support or we could see another tragedy like this."
