A concerned father checking up on his holidaying daughter called her cellphone only to be told she had been murdered, said police.
The 16-year-old girl had only minutes earlier been declared dead by paramedics called by a security guard to the scene of her stabbing.
The teenager, from Carletonville, and a friend were walking in Margate, KwaZulu-Natal, in the early hours of the morning when they were accosted by two men, said Superintendent Zandra Hechter.
One of them tried to grab the girl’s handbag and there was a struggle in which he stabbed her in the neck.
He fled, leaving the girl’s belongings scattered on the ground.
She walked a few metres, then collapsed. Her friend desperately tried to staunch the blood from the wound.
A Chubb security vehicle patrolling the area noticed the two girls and called the emergency services.
The 16-year-old was declared dead on the scene. Her friend sustained a scratch on her arm in the incident.
The teenager’s body was still on the scene when her cellphone started ringing. It was her father checking up on her.
Hechter said the girl’s parents were on their way to Margate to identify their daughter’s body on Tuesday. — Sapa