告发女老板莫斯特尔特的员工狄亚西一直受罪恶感折磨,决定坦白一切。狄亚西的证词说:“我脑海里一直有角磨机的声音,我受不了了。这些年来我一直睡不好。”他说,莫斯特尔特威胁员工不照做就开除。
警方表示,收到狄亚西报案后,他们便将男死者的尸体掘出,发现腿部遭锯部分有烧伤痕迹。
A undertaker who ordered staff to saw off the legs of a corpse because it was too tall to fit into a coffin, has appeared in court charged with mutilation.
Ronel Mostert, who ran a funeral parlour in Grahamstown, appeared in the Grahamstown Magistrate's Court on Wednesday after one of her employees blew the lid on a three-year-old secret.
Mostert allegedly ordered staff "to get an angle grinder and cut off the legs" because the 33-year-old "man was too tall to fit into the coffin", according to court documents.
The employee, Siphamandla Dyasi, claimed the incident had been haunting him and so he decided to come clean.
"I still hear the sound of the angle grinder in my head. I could not take it anymore," he said in written testimony. "For all these years I have had difficulties sleeping."
He alleged that Mostert had threatened them with dismissal if he told anyone about the incident. The remains of the man have been exhumed as part of the police investigation. They showed burn marks where the legs had been sawn off.
Police told AFP more allegations of corpse mutilation at Mostert's Siyakubonga Funeral Services had surfaced since the case began last month.
The case has been postponed until 27 June for further investigation.