Africa-Press – South-Africa. The frantic search for Eastern Cape Methodist Church lay priest and general store owner Zoleka Gantana, 57, and her 27-year-old employee, Kholosa Mpunga, has ended after the discovery of their dismembered bodies, which were burnt beyond recognition.
Their remains were found in bushes near the small town of Peddie, Gantana’s distraught daughter, Nobuntu, said on Saturday.
Nobuntu is the correctional services department’s Eastern Cape spokesperson.
Eastern Cape police confirmed the discovery of the bodies and said a statement would be released later on Saturday morning.
News24 previously reported that the women were the victims of a robbery at Gantana’s store in Ncerha, outside East London, in the Eastern Cape.
At the time, Nobuntu revealed that the assailants emptied the shop’s freezer of meat and made off with the day’s takings, and added that she believed they had used her mother’ s bakkie to flee.
News24 has established that the police found the Isuzu bakkie on Wednesday. Sources told News24 it was stripped and abandoned in the same area where the bodies were found.
An official close to the investigation said:
Gantana ran the store from the premises of her home for more than a decade and hired Mpunga as an assistant two weeks before the incident.
A neighbour grew suspicious and called Nobuntu at around 11:00 on Sunday after finding the store empty.
Mpunga, the mother of a one-year-old child, is from Mtyholo Village, outside Qonce.
Her uncle Lennox Mgidini Mpunga said police informed the family on Friday that the bodies had been found.
He was too distraught to talk about the incident.
Lennox previously pleaded for his niece’s safe return and said the family didn’t have any money in the event a ransom was demanded.
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