‘She was one of us’: Dawn Park women gather in horror as ninth woman is found dead

Women gather at the scene in Lama Street, Dawn Park, Boksburg, where the body of a woman, the ninth found dead in Ekurhuleni in nine weeks, was discovered on Thursday

Still in their slippers, dressing gowns and blankets, women dropped what they were doing and rushed from their homes in Dawn Park on Thursday morning after hearing that one of their own had been found partially naked with her throat slit.

At the scene, an open space in Lama Street in the Villa Lisa area of the Boksburg suburb, they gathered around her body, some weeping as they looked at the woman who had been so brutally murdered.

The grim discovery brings to nine the number of women found dead in Ekurhuleni in just nine weeks.

Gauteng police spokesperson Colonel Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi said the woman, presumably 30, had not yet been identified.

"A multidisciplinary team of experts has already been mobilised to work on the cases and ensure that those responsible for these crimes are brought before the court," Nevhuhulwi said.

Acting Gauteng police commissioner Major General Fred Kekana said preliminary information indicated that the woman had been killed elsewhere and that her body was simply dumped in Dawn Park.

Police and a forensic investigator lift a silver sheet over the body of a woman found in Lama Street, Dawn Park, Boksburg, on Thursday, as detectives take notes beside them. She is the ninth woman found dead in Ekurhuleni in nine weeks.

When an IOL team arrived, police were at the scene and a myriad of women milled about.

Police bakkies and unmarked cars were parked one behind the other as a forensic pathology van stood with its back doors open beside the body.

Men in dark overalls brought out a white sheet and spread it beside where the woman lay, while yellow police tape was tied between the weeds and pooled in the muddy puddles left by the rain.

Behind the tape, the women who had rushed from their homes watched as the scene unfolded, some still in their slippers, dressing gowns and blankets.

Deputy national police commissioner Lieutenant General Tebello Mosikili, who was at the scene, said the teams working on the killings were capable of solving them.

"There have been incidents before that we managed to crack and solve," Mosikili told IOL .