Pretoria – The burial of Hillary Gardee, the slain daughter of former Economic Freedom Fighters secretary-general Godrich Gardee will take place on Saturday, the family has announced.
“The Gardee family wishes to announce this morning that the funeral of the late beloved daughter of the Gardees will be held on Saturday, the 7th of May 2022, at Kamagugu township in Nelspruit, here in Mpumalanga at the Church on the Hill. Confirmations are made, and preparations are in place to lay to rest Hillary Gardee, who was abducted on the 29th of April,” said family spokesperson Sinawo Thambo, who is also EFF national spokesperson.
“As the family, we would like to extend our appreciation, once again, to the general public, the people of South Africa, for the consistent support.”
He said the outpouring of support, including from various political parties, shows that “we are not primary enemies in society, but we are opponents”.
Thambo appealed to community members “to respect the proceedings of the family on Saturday”.
“Let us not cause a stampede or flood the funeral. We will be extending invites. We do, of course, understand that this is a national tragedy, but let us also have a sense of humanity to respect that the family is in mourning and not turn the burial into a spectacle,” said Thambo.
On Wednesday, the EFF revealed that Hillary, 28, was shot execution style after a bullet was found lodged at the back of her head.
Hillary was found dead in bushes 45km outside of Mbombela on Tuesday by passers-by who were on their way to work.
Hillary had been missing since Friday after she was last spotted at her local supermarket.
On Wednesday, Thambo said they were concerned.
“We have received information that the bullet wound was located in the back of her head. It means she was shot almost execution style.
“Our biggest concern is that the police on the scene did not pick up that Hillary Gardee had been shot. This is gross incompetence – it does not need forensics to identify a bullet wound.
“That means the police did not conduct a thorough investigation of the crime scene and, at this point, it is too late – that crime scene has been contaminated, people were doing walkabouts with the media there when the police on the ground had failed to identify that there was a bullet wound. They have not located cartridges. They do not know what happened in terms of the location there,” he said, citing a post-mortem report.
He said they were still going to get Section 205 to do further investigation on cellphones and other banking creditors.
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