A mother from Westlake says she is disappointed in the justice system as her son’s alleged killer is walking around scot-free, while his children will grow up fatherless.
Mathilda Cochrane, 65, says her son Rodger, 40, was beaten to death with a blunt object, allegedly by his best friend, on 29 January.
According to the distraught mother, her son’s killer accused Rodger of piemping him to his girlfriend that he cheated on her.
Mathilda says: “The story is that the suspect slept with another girl in my son’s bungalow.
“At the time my son was playing dice with other friends under the street light. He threatened my son and said that if he piemped him ‘dan is hy vrek’.”
Mathilda says before midnight, the people in the street called her saying that her son is in a coma.
She says: “When I arrived on the scene, the suspect was busy doing CPR on Rodger, he told us that he hit my son in the stomach, then my son tripped, fell and knocked his head.
“He claimed it was an accident and we believed him and decided to forgive him.
“The suspect went with us to the hospital and cried so much. The suspect and Rodger were on drugs, but they weren’t involved in gangsterism. Initially we didn’t want to open a police case because he was like a son to me and I didn’t want to put him in jail.”
Mathilda says Rodger was supposed to start a new job in Wynberg and leaves behind two children, aged two and 16. She says when the suspect appeared in Wynberg Magistrate’s Court on 30 January, she was not able to make it as she had to go and identify her son’s body.
Mathilda says: “The case was postponed to 11 April and he is out on R1 000 bail. I am so upset, that doesn’t make sense how a murderer is outside. The system is failing me.”