Two men stole a hearse with a corpse to go on a drinking spree in Soweto over the weekend, the Sowetan newspaper reported on Monday.
They were caught after the vehicle ran out of petrol on Sunday morning in the Freedom Park informal settlement, near Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital at around 3am.
The men apparently met three women at a shebeen and asked them to help push the hearse to the nearest petrol station.
They told the women the corpse belonged to a relative and that they were on their way to bury it at the Avalon Cemetery.
The women were shocked to hear there was a body in the car and called a member of the Community Policing Forum (CPF).
”They failed to show us papers identifying whose corpse it was, and they appeared to be drunk,” said John Dlomo, a CPF member.
He said the men confessed to stealing the hearse in Mofolo and using it to hop from tavern to tavern.
”They told us they had decided they would dump the corpse somewhere along the way, but had not decided what they would do with the car,” said Dlomo.
He said residents used their belts to tie the thieves to the car and called the police.
The driver of the hearse, Siphiwo Mkhize, said he had parked outside his house to fetch money for petrol, but when he came out the vehicle was not there.
Undertakers removed the body from the hearse and took it back to the company’s mortuary. – Sapa