Thugs kill mom for her television

FIVE days after Tracey-Leigh Frankish’s screams scared off would-be burglars, house robbers struck again, this time taking her life.

A TV set, hi-fi and a small amount of money were the only things stolen from the 33-year-old woman’s cottage in Farmall, an agricultural holding north of Fourways.

Johan Burger, senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies, who last year co-authored a report on crime and public security in South Africa, said the murder highlighted how political promises had not been kept as far as the eradication of farm attacks was concerned.

Frankish’s murder means that her seven-year-old son will grow up without a mother.

The break-in happened in the early hours of Sunday morning, when the child was with his grandparents, Fred and Helen Britz, at their Bryanston home.

Frankish, who was in the process of divorcing her husband, who lives in the UK, had been leasing a cottage on a plot.

Private security company RSS Security responded to a panic signal followed by an alarm signal at 12.47pm.

A security officer who arrived at the premises six minutes later found the security gate on the front door had been forced open.

Frankish was found kneeling in front of her bed, with a gunshot wound in the head.

“When the security officer went outside to radio for medical back-up he saw three suspects fleeing into the bushes and gave chase,” said RSS Security managing director Sean Mooney.

The unidentified men got away.

Douglasdale police spokesman Inspector Balan Muthan confirmed a murder case was under investigation.

“There are no suspects. The front door was left unlocked. Police and the security firm reacted within minutes, but the suspects had fled and the area is so dark at night,” Muthan said.