Pupils at the Trinity House Preparatory School will remember their slain classmate Emily Williams (12) with a memorial in the school hall on Monday, the school confirmed on Wednesday.
Williams died when she was hit by a bullet fired in a stand-off between robbers and security guards at a house in Kessel Street, Fairlands, on Tuesday morning.
Only school pupils would be able to attend the service as the school hall, in Randpark Ridge, was not big enough to accommodate everyone who wanted to pay their respects to Williams, said a school spokesperson.
It is understood that the Williams’s funeral will be held at St Michael’s Anglican Church in Bryanston on Friday — however, this has not yet been confirmed.
Gunfight
Williams, a Grade Seven pupil, was in her mother Tony’s bronze BMW X3 with her 10-year-old sister Sophie and two other pupils when they stopped to pick up classmate Alison Saunders at her home in Fairlands at 7am on Tuesday.
However, it was not the schoolgirl, but a robber who came out of the house when Tony Williams hooted.
She asked him who he was, but he ignored her and went back inside.
She suspected something was amiss and telephoned Chubb Security.
The robber and his accomplice had attacked the Saunders family an hour earlier, tying up Alison, her father, grandmother and their domestic worker. They opened fire when the security guards arrived.
Emily was struck by a bullet in the car. Realising her daughter had been shot, her mother drove towards the Wilgeheuwel Hospital.
On the way she met up with paramedics at a petrol station in CR Swart Drive. Despite their efforts to save the girl, she died.
Three of the robbers were arrested at the scene, police said, a short while after the shooting.
Two firearms were recovered. A fourth robber was arrested in Soweto late on Tuesday afternoon.
It was not yet known when they would appear in the Johannesburg Magistrate’s Court, Inspector Bokkie Keulder said on Wednesday.
”There is a possibility they might be linked to other cases,” he said.
This was still under investigation.
Detainees may be held by the police for 48 hours before appearing in court.
Keulder dismissed reports that a fifth robber was being sought. – Sapa