Bob Woolmer’s wife, in Cape Town, has expressed anger at a wave of media speculation sparked by the Pakistan coach’s death, the Cape Argus reported on Monday.
”I’m getting a bit angry about it all. I’m not watching the news anymore … I’m taking it all with a pinch of salt,” Gill Woolmer told the newspaper earlier in the day.
British newspapers have published reports claiming that Woolmer may have been poisoned with aconite, or wolfsbane.
The deadly juices from the plant Aconitum napellus were used extensively for arrow poison before the invention of firearms.
Other reports suggest Woolmer was not murdered, but that he suffered a neck injury after drinking a bottle of Johnny Walker.
Gill said: ”[Jamaican Deputy Police Commissioner] Mark Shields is still in personal contact with me and he says all these things they’re saying are simply not true. He’s promised me that I’ll be the first one to know if there are any developments.”
She said her two sons, Dale and Russell, were ”coping”.
”They’re OK. Bob was away so often — but now he’s no longer at the end of a phone. It’s going to take a long time to realise that, this time, he’s not coming back.”
A memorial service for Woolmer will be held at Wynberg Boys’ High School on Wednesday. — Sapa