GRAEME HOSKEN
A YOUNG mother was shot dead in a drive-by shooting carried out by two masked motorcyclists moments after dropping off her five-year-old son at creche.
The killers’ identity and the motive for the killing of Chanelle Henning, who was estranged from her wealthy businessman husband, is unknown.
None of 26-year-old Henning’s belongings were stolen in the shooting.
As police cordoned off Faerie Glen Hill Estates in Pretoria, detectives were spotted taking away her Blackberry, which they had found inside her handbag in her white Hyundai 120.
Henning, whose family claim she was followed on Monday by a motorcyclist from her home to Woodhill College, where she worked as a teaching assistant, was shot yesterday after dropping her son Benjamin at the Morningstar Montessori creche.
She and her son lived in Faerie Glen Hill Estates, opposite the creche.
Evidence gathered by police officers outside the school indicates the killers had been waiting outside the creche and attacked as Henning reversed her car from the school’s parking lot.
The gunman, who witnesses say was sitting on the back of the motorbike, opened fire at her.
He shot her through the driver’s window as she stopped and prepared to drive off.
Netcare 911 paramedics said Henning was shot once in the chest under the right arm.
She drove off with her killers apparently following her as she crashed into a dustbin, before colliding with a street sign as she desperately tried to escape.
Her car came to a stop about 300m from the creche outside a house in Manitoba Street, where passing motorists tried in vain to help her.
Police hope CCTV footage recovered from the estate and the school’s security systems, and information stored on her cellphone, will provide clues to the killers’ identities and the people behind the murder.
As her parents stood at the spot where she died, a police source said the killing was no ordinary murder.
“This is definitely not your robbery or hijacking gone wrong. Someone may have wanted us to think this, but it is not,” said the source.
Her father, Ivan Saincic, who last saw Henning on Sunday for a family gathering, said his daughter had just started working.
“All we know is that she told us that someone had followed her to school on Monday.
“We don’t know who these people are or why they would do this,” he said, adding that Henning had been separated from her husband for three years.
Netcare 911 spokesman Jeff Wicks said Henning died before paramedics could reach her.