A Cape Flats family is on a mission to find the driver who killed their elderly mother in a hit-and-run tragedy.
Last Thursday night, 78-year-old Wilhelmina Adams died while on her way home after visiting her daughter.
Eyewitnesses say the Mitchells Plain ouma was crossing Langeberg Road in Tafelsig at about 6.25pm when she was hit by a “speeding” white VW Polo.
The impact sent her “flying through the air like a ragdoll, landing more than 30 metres” from where she was hit.
Wilhelmina’s traumatised son Theo Adams, 42, says his mom looked horrible.
“Her one leg was one side, her teeth were out, she was bleeding from her head and her shoes were lying somewhere else. All her things were scattered,” he says.
Theo says before she left, his mother, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, wanted to put on the clothes she was expected to wear at her brother’s funeral on Saturday.
“As she left, I told her to put on a cap because it’s cold. She turned back at the door and asked if she must put on the black and white clothes which she was meant to wear to my uncle’s funeral.
“My uncle died [last] Monday and his funeral [was] on Saturday. We were just coming to terms with my uncle’s death and now this happened,” he says.
The family has gone on a door-to-door campaign in the hope of finding the man responsible for their mother’s death.
Theo’s brother Vincent Adams, 54, says: “From what we heard my mother fell onto the windscreen, then he drove over her and sped off. The community told us the windscreen is broken so we want to encourage that person or his family to hand himself over to police.
“Our mother was old and we expected her to die, just not like this.”
Police spokesperson Constable Johnatan Filander says a case of culpable homicide was opened for investigation.
“Anyone who can assist the police with the investigation can contact Crime Stop at 08600 10111,” he adds.