Free State Police spokesperson, Motantsi Makhele, tells OFM News that the 39-year-old court orderly, identified as Kekeletso ‘Keke’ Adam, and her husband, the 50-year-old Solomon Adam, were found in their house in Rocklands with bullet wounds to the head on Monday afternoon, 7 June. The husband’s service pistol was found next to his body. He was stationed at Park Road. Makhele says they are investigating one case of murder and launched an inquest into the alleged suicide that followed. 

Employees at the courthouse, who knew Keke, are reeling from her murder. They told OFM News, on account of anonymity, that they cannot believe that this happened to her.

The tragedy comes less than a month after Free State law enforcement agencies conceded, during a gender-based violence (GBV) and Femicide Indaba held at Bobbiespark in Bloemfontein that they have failed to competently handle the scourge of GBV in the province. 

The Acting Free State Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Navilla Somaru, and Provincial Police Commissioner, Baile Motswenyane, admitted that the situation in the province, with regards to this issue, is quite dire at this stage. 

Somaru cautions that many Free State towns and cities are ranked amongst the places with the highest sexually-based offenses and gender-based violence statistics or case numbers in the country, making specific mention of Botshabelo, Bronville, in Welkom, and Phuthaditjhaba. 

The Provincial Police Commissioner says if the systems put in place by law enforcement agencies were indeed effective, gender-based violence numbers would be lower. 

The indaba was meant to be a strategy session for all the relevant stakeholders to engage and pledge to implement the existing processes to curb the problem. 

Somaru says because law enforcement officials have failed to curb the problem, they are seeking to collaborate with broader civil society, churches, non-governmental organisations, and traditional authorities to help mitigate the problem.

OFM News