Delmas | Monday
A 66-YEAR old Delmas grandfather and his 33-year old daughter will go on trial in the Nigel Regional Court on Monday on charges of incest.
Robert Fedder, his 61-year old wife Elsina, son Jan and daughter Breggie Kamffer were arrested on a farm near Delmas in Mpumalanga in July last year on charges of incest, aiding and abetting incest, fraud and concealment of birth.
The arrests followed allegations to the police that Breggie and her brother had had an incestuous relationship for at least 16 years. Breggie claimed to have been pregnant by her brother at least 10 times but has only two surviving sons, aged 16 and eight.
When their mother was arrested the boys were placed in a place of safety where they remain.
Soon after being released on bail in September last year, Breggie married Stefan Kamffer, nine years her junior.
Shortly after his sister’s wedding, Jan Fedder was released on R600 bail. Both his parents and Kamffer had changed their original statements that he held her against her will and used force against his parents.
In March Jan Fedder’s decomposing body was found by one of his sisters on the farm where he lived with his parents.
He had hanged himself in one of the rooms while his parents were away for a weekend. In a note he left behind he claimed that he was unhappy because he did not have access to his sons.
When Kamffer and her parents appeared in the Nigel Regional Court in August, a charge of incest was lodged against her father.
Prosecutor Bennie Kilian told the court that initial blood tests had shown that Robert Fedder might have fathered Kamffer’s eldest son. He asked for a postponement to have specialised DNA testing done. These tests, he said, would be 100% conclusive.
A charge of incest was withdrawn against Kamffer’s mother, Elsina. Kilian said, however, that she could at a later stage be charged with, among others, child neglect and abuse. – Sapa