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Cops probe genital mutilator for lover’s death

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Danish weapons dealer Peter Frederiksen at his second bail application. Picture: Conrad Bornman
Danish weapons dealer Peter Frederiksen at his second bail application. Picture: Conrad Bornman

Police investigating the case of Peter Frederiksen – the Danish man whose freezer was found stocked with 21 packets containing the severed genitals of several women – are now investigating him in connection with the death of one of his victims.

Last August, a 20-year-old woman died a few months after allegedly becoming one of Frederiksen’s female genital mutilation victims.

Thembi*, who worked as a cleaner at Frederiksen’s gun shop in Bloemfontein, died in a mysterious shack fire a few months after fleeing the man who allegedly told her he wanted to mutilate her again.

Hawks spokesperson Hangwani Mulaudzi confirmed that the unit’s Bloemfontein officers were investigating if Frederiksen was linked to the shack fire.

“This office is aware of the deceased and this is part of the ongoing investigation into Frederiksen’s case,” he said.

The Hawks are now applying for permission to exhume Thembi’s body for DNA testing to match the samples against the body parts found in Frederiksen’s freezer.

Thembi cannot be identified to protect the identity of her cousin and family members, who may be called to testify in the case against Frederiksen.

She went looking for a job

Thembi’s grandmother, who sent her to look for work in Bloemfontein, said she was heartbroken to learn that her beautiful granddaughter had had an affair with the Danish man.

A City Press investigation has found that in September 2013, Frederiksen met Thembi through one of his managerial staff’s domestic workers.

The domestic worker was Thembi’s cousin, Lulama*.

She sobbed as she spoke of how she initially felt she had nothing to be concerned about as she had worked for one of Frederiksen’s employees at the gun shop for years.

“I would clean his house and then go fetch my money at the gun shop. I didn’t even know who owned the shop until Thembi came to live with me,” she said.

Her grandmother said she wanted Thembi to start building a life for herself and their small Free State town offered few prospects.

Lulama managed to secure Thembi a job cleaning the gun shop.

“I don’t remember the exact date, but it was before Christmas when Thembi came to me and asked if I knew who the boss of the gun shop was,” she said.

“I didn’t know because all I did was to go and fetch money there. She told me his name was Peter, an old white man, and he was interested in her. I told her I had nothing to say about that because she was an adult.”

The affair begins

Just two months later, in December 2013, Lulama learnt that Frederiksen and Thembi were having an affair.

He was married to Lesotho national Matseliso Molise, who was gunned down more than two weeks ago outside her home in Maseru. Police are investigating Frederiksen in connection with her murder.

Thembi continued working at the gun shop, but Frederiksen allegedly became jealous of how men were looking at her.

“He told Thembi to stop working at the gun shop. Peter thought the way one of his employees looked at Thembi was suspicious and the days of her working at the gun shop were over,” she said.

But Frederiksen kept her close, “calling every other day asking her to go to his house and clean it, and help out with his children, or sleep with him”, said Lulama.

She said Thembi would not come home for days. When she did, she arrived with bottles of perfume, flowers and a few hundred rands Frederiksen had given her.

Mutilated

But one day in March last year, Thembi refused to get out of bed.

“She kept telling me she was having her period, but the pain she was going through kept her up and she would moan all night,” she said.

One evening, Lulama arrived home to find Thembi writhing in agony.

“She wept a bit and looked at me with such shame.

“She asked me to forgive her. She said she was sorry. She said she had done many bad things. She said she was afraid to tell me,” she said.

“Then she told me Peter had cut her and that was why she was in pain.”

Thembi told her cousin that Frederiksen had cut out her clitoris and told her that her vagina needed to be clean.

He also said she’d never want another man and she would only have eyes for him.

Frederiksen allegedly gave Thembi some champagne and injected her with “something”.

“She told me she had woken up and had found blood everywhere.

“I told her to stop talking, I didn’t need the details because she was sick and that was all we needed to deal with at the time. I took her to a traditional healer.”

But soon after, Thembi was back with Frederiksen.

“She said Peter was romantic. He had bought her flowers and necklaces, and promised her the world, even to take her back to school. She continued the relationship, saying she was happy,” she said.

But the couple fought when Frederiksen wanted to cut her again.

“She told me he wanted to give her R10 000, but she didn’t want it,” Lulama said. “She told me she was afraid that he would just keep cutting her and she didn’t know when it would stop.”

That was when Frederiksen allegedly started threatening Thembi, saying he would take the naked pictures he had taken of her and others of her severed clitoris to the newspapers if she didn’t let him do it again.

Last May, Thembi ran away, changed her number, and cut all ties with Frederiksen.

“At the same time, Peter was calling me, saying that Thembi had stolen things from his house. I told him he should do what he needed to do and call the police.”

Death by fire

Three months later, Thembi’s shack caught fire when she was inside. The police report states that a neighbour dragged her out, but she died of her wounds at Bloemfontein’s Pelonomi Regional Hospital.

Her autopsy report stated that 90% of her body was covered in third-degree burns.

Thembi’s aunt said she was called to the scene of the fire and took care of her before she died.

“She wanted to tell us what had happened there, but she couldn’t even speak because there was just foam coming out of her mouth. I will never get rid of the picture and the smell of Thembi’s charred body lying in that hospital,” she said.

The aunt said she remembered how Frederiksen had arrived at her funeral with his young son and an employee as the family was lowering the coffin into the ground. “He brought some cheap flowers. I was the priestess at the funeral and he begged me to stop the proceedings so he could see Thembi’s body. We opened the coffin. I thought it was a bit strange, but I didn’t think much of it,” she said.

“Then he started talking about how Thembi was the love of his life and how he loved her. I was irritated with that and pulled him aside, asking him not to disrespect the funeral in that way.”

Frederiksen’s picture of Thembi’s tombstone was found among the thousands of photographs confiscated from his house.

Cousin pursued

He kept contact with her family in Bloemfontein, especially her cousin.

Lulama told City Press he kept calling her, asking if she could take care of his children, clean his house and this year, she claims, he asked to have sex with her too.

She agreed.

“I did it and it was wrong, I know. He told me about Matseliso and all the other women who used him.

“Listening to him, you would feel sorry for him. I didn’t know all these things about him then,” she said.

“In September, he asked me to let him cut me. He put pressure on me every time I went to his place. I finally agreed and we set a date for September 24.”

Eight days before that, Frederiksen was arrested.

*Not their real names, which are known to City Press

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