‘THIS IS NOT THE END’

“IT DOES not mean the end”. These were the words of the magistrate at the Kuils River Magistrates Court as she struck the matter off the roll against Kraaifontein undertaker, Petrus Booysen.

Booysen made headlines in January when he was accused of burying people as paupers instead of cremating them, and issuing fake cremation certificates to families.

More than 10 families broke their silence this year, saying their loved ones were not cremated but buried in unmarked graves in Kuils River’s Welmoed Cemetery.

But the families’ nightmare continued on Wednesday when the magistrate provisionally struck the matter off the roll for vital evidence such as the Western Cape High Court application for exhumations and DNA testing to be submitted.

Last month, Booysen’s legal team asked that the case be set down for a final postponement due to the delay in evidence.

The magistrate on Wednesday hammered the State for not submitting the application to the High Court and for infringing on the rights of the victims and the accused.

She said: “If the State was fully aware of the seriousness of the matter,  why didn’t they treat it as such? No one knows when it will be investigated. Court is going to strike the matter off the roll.

“The matter can be placed back on the roll if there is an instruction from the Department of Public Prosecutions.

“It doesn’t mean it is the end.”

Booysen refused to comment to Independent Media after the decision was not met well by the devastated families.

Anita Momberg, the daughter of Terisa Murray who was buried a pauper in August last year instead of being cremated, said they would not stop fighting for justice.

She says: “We are devastated and it feels like the State wants to exhaust us emotionally, but we will not give up the fight.

Nicolene Cushy, who kept her Fish Hoek father Johannes Francois Nel’s ashes for a year, only to be informed that he too was buried a pauper, said she was furious.

She adds: “As a daughter who is still grieving, I am heartbroken and furious. This decision feels like a slap in the face to my family and to my father’s memory.”

Wendy Damon, family member of 94-year-old Rachel Trussell and the ones who first raised the alarm, said they too were shocked.

Damon says: “The City purposefully dragged out the investigations, knowing it will be struck off the roll.

“Why are they not granting permission for the exhumation to be done, if that is the evidence they need?”

The City previously said it was not for them to comment as it was a police investigation.