AN 11-MONTH-OLD baby girl was found holding her dead mother's hand, 10 hours after the child's father allegedly beat her to death.
In the first of two fatal attacks on women in the Johannesburg area this week - allegedly by their jealous former lovers - Liesel Badenhorst's head was smashed against the rim of her bath, cracking it.
Her brother-in-law, Pieter Bester, found her little daughter at 5am on Saturday morning.
"She did not cry. She was just standing there, clutching her mother's hand. When I looked at her, she just stared back," he said yesterday.
The room and the child's clothes were covered in blood.
As experts predict a rise in the number of women murdered by their husbands or boyfriends, Gerhard Jansen van Vuuren, 30, on Tuesday morning allegedly killed his former girlfriend, Andrea Venter.
Jansen van Vuuren first punched the 25-year-old woman with a knuckle duster and stabbed her with a knife. He then slit her throat.
Venter, an accountant, moved from Rustenburg to Johannesburg three months ago, to escape the man who was still obsessed with her, securing a protection order against him in 2008.
Jansen van Vuuren phoned 33 auditing firms in Johannesburg to track her down.
Badenhorst, meanwhile, lived with her daughter in a townhouse in Witfield, Boksburg, after she had separated from her boyfriend, Elias Benadito, 48, a month ago.
Gauteng police spokesperson Colonel Tshisikhawe Ndou, confirmed yesterday that the police were looking for Benadito, the child's father, in connection with the crime.
Badenhorst's sister, Theresa Bester, said the baby was in deep shock.
"She doesn't sleep at all," she said yesterday.
Ndou said Jansen van Vuuren, who had attempted suicide by slitting his own throat in front of a security guard at the security complex in the northern Johannesburg suburb of Fourways in which Venter lived, was in a serious but stable condition and was under police guard at the Life Fourways Hospital.
People Opposing Women Abuse clinical manager Tiny Moloko said that although protection orders and interdicts empowered women with legislation that would scare off their abusers, they often did not serve their purpose.
Moloko said Powa safe-houses and shelters were packed with women who fled their abusive partners with their children, or who are testifying in court cases involving their abusive partners.
Tshwaranang Legal Advocacy Centre director Lisa Vetten said that there has definitely been an increase in the number of reported domestic killings in recent years.
Vetten said in 2008-2009, only 3626 police were trained in the Domestic Violence Act and out of a force of more than 200000, only 3181 were trained in 2009-2010.