Taliep Petersen Murder: Police Priority
Four days after the murder, police spokesperson Billy Jones said that provincial detectives from Bellville had been assigned to the case.
This brought the number of detectives working on the case to over 12. It had become clear that the police were taking this murder very seriously. They had many leads to cover and different aspects to investigate.
The Top Cop
At this time, a top police investigator, Superintendent Piet Viljoen had taken over the investigation. Viljoen was a 43 year old, well respected, specialist detective who had won the pestigious ‘Detective of the Year’ award several times.
He had been one of the top investigators in the now defunct ‘murder and robbery unit’ and was now the head of the provincial organised crime unit. Among his many cases, he had worked on the Jurgen Harksen fraud case, the Vito Palazzolo case and the 2004 murder of Dutch student Marleen Konings.
He was tasked with solving the crime and arresting those responsible. At this stage he had to look at the ’sloppy’ witness statement, work with the cellphone providers in tracking the stolen phones and look for motives, amongst other things.
It was also revealed that the police were investigating the possibility that a Nissan bakkie (truck) and a Mercedes-Benz which were parked near the house could have been planned to be used as getaway vehicles.
Observations
By this time it had become clear that this case was a priority for the police. There had been a number of murder cases of the previous year, including the Inge Lotz murder. These investigations had received bad press and progress was very slow. Under pressure, the police needed to work fast and professionally on this case and to solve it as soon as possible.
Bringing in the ‘celebrity’ cop also made a show of importance to the public and the media. It has to be remembered that Taliep was a major celebrity in the community and the police knew that they had to keep the public happy. Any bad press about the investigation could result in all kinds of additional trouble from the community.
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