West Cape News

The town of Darling is mourning the death of well-known resident Susan Armstrong Flight who was murdered in her house on Thursday last week.

In a small west coast town where residents often leave doors unlocked, the murder of 60-year-old Susan Armstrong Flight, a well-known character, has put the community on edge.

Flight’s body was found in the bedroom of her house in Darling on Monday morning by her domestic worker.

Police believe bandages were used to strangle her on Thursday afternoon. A number of electronic items, including two laptops, a camera, two cellphones and a DVD player had been stolen.

Darling police spokesperson Warrant Officer Johan Horn said the woman who was employed by Flight to clean the house on Mondays, found it strange that the front door of the house was open when she arrived for work.

“She saw flies in the house and sprayed them”, before finding Flight’s body in the bedroom.

Horn said as the body was badly decomposed the CSI team was called to establish the time and cause of death. There were no signs of forced entry.

He said due to the quick-wittedness of a resident, a 29-year-old suspect who had tried to draw money from Flight’s account at an ATM in Darling was arrested on Monday after the card was swallowed.

Following the man’s arrest, Flight’s DVD player, camera, one of two stolen cellphones and a laptop had been recovered. The suspect, who lives in Darling, had apparently already sold the camera in Atlantis, approximately 15km away, said Horn.

He said the suspect had been released from jail about a month ago after serving time for a previous conviction.

Long-time friend Kotie Reid said Flight lived alone and worked from home as an accountant for a game and tourism farm on the west coast.

“She used to backup her laptop with the farm’s servers at 3pm every day and the last backup she did was on Thursday,” said Reid.

She said Flight always locked her doors at night but, as her gardening tools were still outside, it could be that her murderer approached her while she was working in the garden and forced her inside.

Besides working as an accountant from home, Flight worked at the annual Voorkamerfest in Darling and used to work in the office at satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys’s theatre, Evita se Perron in Darling, as well as help out at the annual flower show and at the SPCA.

The only family Flight had were her sister and niece who live in Australia.

She was due to visit them for Christmas.

“She was terribly excited about the trip,” said Reid. — Steve Kretzmann