Police mum on B1 Butcher case

THREE weeks and counting after the last discovery of some of the severed body parts of the late Sanna //Garoes, the Namibian Police have little progress to report on their search for the person responsible for killing her.

//Garoes’s remains were dismembered and her body parts dumped along main roads outside Windhoek. Whether the same person was responsible for killing //Garoes (36) and other women who were found dead – and in one case also decapitated – in Windhoek or the central part of the country in the past two years, also remains under investigation, with no clear findings yet.This was indicated by the Commanding Officer of the Police’s Public Relations and Liaison Division, Chief Inspector Angula Amulungu, on enquiry yesterday.Family members of //Garoes on July 13 identified body parts found lying next to the B1 road north and south of Windhoek and the B6 road east of the city over the previous four weeks as the remains of //Garoes.She had last been seen in front of a restaurant and bar, Zum Wirt, situated on the city’s Independence Avenue, on the evening of June 13.On June 17, a female torso that had been cut into two pieces was discovered in a rubbish bin next to the B1 road some 42 kilometres north of Windhoek.This torso is thought to be part of //Garoes’s remains.Human thighs were found in another rubbish bin next to the B1 road some 65 km south of Windhoek on June 20.The last of the body parts identified as the remains of //Garoes were her head, feet and lower legs, which were found strewn next to the B6 road some 35 km east of Windhoek on July 11.According to what he had been told by the National Forensic Science Institute of Namibia, it was possible that these body parts could have been lying where they were found from about the time that //Garoes had last been seen alive, Deputy Commissioner Marius Visser, who is in charge of the investigation into her death, said yesterday.Amulungu told The Namibian that the Police believed that some progress was being made with the investigation – but he was not in a position to say how far it had progressed.”Definitely, I think there is light at the end of the tunnel,” Amulungu stated.Neither he nor Visser could say if it had been established yet what the cause of //Garoes’s death was.Amulungu also preferred not to speculate about whether a serial killer was possibly responsible for killing //Garoes and other women found dead in Windhoek and at Rehoboth over the past two years.This is something that the detectives working on //Garoes’s case would still have to determine, he said.So far, though, a possible link could have been found between the circumstances of //Garoes’s fate and that of the late Juanita Mabula (21), whose decapitated body was found lying next to the Western Bypass section of the B1 road on September 25 2005, he indicated.Mabula’s head was found lying next to the B1 road between Windhoek and Rehoboth on October 24 2005.It was found only 14,5 km north of the spot where //Garoes’s thighs were later to be discovered.It is suspected that Mabula was killed with a blow to the back of her head.Another young woman whose naked remains were found lying next to the Western Bypass on August 20 2005, Melanie Janse (22), appeared to have suffered severe trauma to her chest and abdomen, which would not necessarily tie in with the way that Mabula and //Garoes may have been killed, Amulungu said.The cause of death of another woman whose murder is also still under investigation, Viola Swartbooi (18), could not be determined because of the state of decomposition that her body was in when she was found buried at Rehoboth on December 28, Amulungu added.Swartbooi had gone missing in Windhoek 12 days earlier.Whether the same person was responsible for killing //Garoes (36) and other women who were found dead – and in one case also decapitated – in Windhoek or the central part of the country in the past two years, also remains under investigation, with no clear findings yet.This was indicated by the Commanding Officer of the Police’s Public Relations and Liaison Division, Chief Inspector Angula Amulungu, on enquiry yesterday.Family members of //Garoes on July 13 identified body parts found lying next to the B1 road north and south of Windhoek and the B6 road east of the city over the previous four weeks as the remains of //Garoes.She had last been seen in front of a restaurant and bar, Zum Wirt, situated on the city’s Independence Avenue, on the evening of June 13.On June 17, a female torso that had been cut into two pieces was discovered in a rubbish bin next to the B1 road some 42 kilometres north of Windhoek.This torso is thought to be part of //Garoes’s remains.Human thighs were found in another rubbish bin next to the B1 road some 65 km south of Windhoek on June 20.The last of the body parts identified as the remains of //Garoes were her head, feet and lower legs, which were found strewn next to the B6 road some 35 km east of Windhoek on July 11.According to what he had been told by the National Forensic Science Institute of Namibia, it was possible that these body parts could have been lying where they were found from about the time that //Garoes had last been seen alive, Deputy Commissioner Marius Visser, who is in charge of the investigation into her death, said yesterday.Amulungu told The Namibian that the Police believed that some progress was being made with the investigation – but he was not in a position to say how far it had progressed.”Definitely, I think there is light at the end of the tunnel,” Amulungu stated.Neither he nor Visser could say if it had been established yet what the cause of //Garoes’s death was.Amulungu also preferred not to speculate about whether a serial killer was possibly responsible for killing //Garoes and other women found dead in Windhoek and at Rehoboth over the past two years.This is something that the detectives working on //Garoes’s case would still have to determine, he said.So far, though, a possible link could have been found between the circumstances of //Garoes’s fate and that of the late Juanita Mabula (21), whose decapitated body was found lying next to the Western Bypass section of the B1 road on September 25 2005, he indicated.Mabula’s head was found lying next to the B1 road between Windhoek and Rehoboth on October 24 2005.It was found only 14,5 km north of the spot where //Garoes’s thighs were later to be discovered.It is suspected that Mabula was killed with a blow to the back of her head.Another young woman whose naked remains were found lying next to the Western Bypass on August 20 2005, Melanie Janse (22), appeared to have suffered severe trauma to her chest and abdomen, which would not necessarily tie in with the way that Mabula and //Garoes may have been killed, Amulungu said.The cause of death of another woman whose murder is also still under investigation, Viola Swartbooi (18), could not be determined because of the state of decomposition that her body was in when she was found buried at Rehoboth on December 28, Amulungu added.Swartbooi had gone missing in Windhoek 12 days earlier.