'Man kept mom’s body in cupboard for days’

Cape Town-28/11/12-Emmanuel Cooper is shocked by what had happened to his mother Stella Cooper, who was killed by his own brother Micheal Cooper, who killed and hid his mother in the bedroom cupboard. Picture:Phando Jikelo

Cape Town-28/11/12-Emmanuel Cooper is shocked by what had happened to his mother Stella Cooper, who was killed by his own brother Micheal Cooper, who killed and hid his mother in the bedroom cupboard. Picture:Phando Jikelo

Published Nov 29, 2012

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Cape Town - A Cape Town man has reportedly admitted to police that he killed his mother, stuffed her in a cupboard for days and then dumped her corpse in a wheelie-bin.

This week forensic teams have been frantically searching the woman’s Grassy Park home and rubbish dumps in the area to find her body.

Her son is currently behind bars after he was arrested earlier this month on separate burglary and shoplifting charges.

But the Daily Voice has learnedthat the 32-year-old told officers investigating the disappearance of his 62-year-old mom that he killed her.

The woman’s family also told the newspaper that he confessed his terrible crime to an uncle who visited him in Pollsmoor Prison.

“This has torn our family apart,” said the suspect’s brother.

“My uncles and aunties are still in shock, especially because my mom’s body hasn’t been found.”

The brother and his girlfriend share the house where his jailbird brother and mother lived.

But he says he has hardly spoken to his younger brother since he came out of prison in September, where he was serving a sentence for burglary.

When the suspected killer was released from jail, he was under house arrest, so he was at home alone with his mother every day.

His brother said he became suspicious when he returned home on the afternoon of Saturday, October 13, to find his mother was not there.

“(He) told me she had left with people in a blue Golf. He said my mother would be home later.”

The family really began to panic when the woman had not returned home by the following Monday.

“(He) couldn’t tell us who she left with and it wasn’t like her to stay away for so long,” said the brother.

“[He also] said we should wait until the following Wednesday, 3pm, before we report my mom missing.”

The family said the suspect then began acting very strangely.

“He never let anyone into his room, not even the kids. And he burnt incense sticks around the house the whole day,” the brother’s girlfriend explained.

Days later the man bizarrely tore down his bedroom door and started painting the wall outside his room.

 

The family now believe the mother’s body was stuffed inside his cupboard for almost a full week after she first went missing.

“The Friday after my mom disappeared I saw that the dirtbin had been slightly emptied and the rubbish was lying in the yard,” added the suspect’s brother.

“I think (he) probably moved my mom’s body in the middle of the night and put it in the bin.”

The brother said his mother’s remains may have lain in the wheelie-bin outside their home for another three days.

“On Tuesday I took the bin out. [I noticed] it was not normal for the bin to be so heavy.”

Police are now investigating the possibility that her remains could have ended up on a rubbish heap.

Police confirm that the suspect was first questioned about his mother’s disappearance last Friday, November 23.

He appeared at the Wynberg Magistrates’ Court on charges of burglary the same day.

Police say the next day his uncle asked them to open a murder docket after he told them his nephew had confessed to the murder when he visited him in prison.

On Sunday, investigating officers returned to the family home to search for fresh clues.

They turned the Grassy Park home upside down and found traces of blood on the panels of the bedroom cupboard.

They also took away the wheelie bin for forensic examination.

Senior police sources have confirmed that the suspect has verbally confessed to the murder to officers.

However, he cannot be charged until he has made a full written confession. He had not done so by the time of going to print on Wednesday night.

On Wednesday night police spokesman Frederick van Wyk said the investigation was still at “a sensitive stage”.

Daily Voice

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