The heartbroken mother of a six-month-old baby girl, who was fatally shot by gangsters, wants the killers jailed for life.
Zahnia Thorne Woodward was shot by ruthless gangsters in Carnation Road, Ocean View, on Friday evening, while sitting on her father’s lap.
One suspect has been arrested; the 31-year-old man will come face-to-face with mom Cindy Woodward in court today.
Zahnia was hit in the back of her head, the bullet exiting through her forehead, when five men in a white VW Golf opened fired at the spot where her dad, Bradley Robyn, 24, and his three friends were sitting.
“I want them to pay for taking my entire life away from me. Right now I fear no gangster in my community because there’s nothing more they can take away from me,” says Cindy, 20, who had her daughter’s name tattooed on her arm just a day before her death.
The baby and her dad were at a bus stop waiting for Cindy to arrive from work at about 5pm.
According to witnesses, the shots were meant for a suspected drug dealer across the road from where the group was sitting.
The little girl was rushed to Red Cross Hospital, but was declared dead on arrival.
Bradley was hit in both thighs, two men were hit in the legs, and one in the arm. They are all recovering in Blaauwberg Hospital.
In an emotional outpouring on Facebook, Cindy vented her anger at the men who killed her baby.
“I’m not just going to let you Gangsters go on living a peaceful life. May ur conscience bother u for all ur life! I have so much anger hurt hate questions. If I have to make a stand all by myself I will but * will be reminded BY ME AS HER MOTHER OF WHAT U TOOK FROM ME! No weapon formed against me shall prosper! Enough is enough. 6 Months Old? F*** NO!!! NO!! NO!!!! [sic]” she wrote.
Speaking from her home yesterday, Cindy says she disembarked the bus 10 minutes after the shooting, and saw an hysterical Bradley, holding a bloody Zhania in his arms, running up and down the street crying for help.
“Nobody would help us, we screamed for almost half an hour for someone to rush my daughter to the hospital,” she says.
“Those bastards the shooting was meant for did nothing.”
A woman eventually drove Zahnia to nearby Blaauwberg Hospital, from where she was transported by ambulance to Red Cross Hospital.
Cindy says she begged her daughter to hang on for dear life.
“I told her she can fight, but she does not have to if it means she won’t hurt anymore. I told her it was OK to let go and then she flatlined,” says the mom.
Grandmother Jennifer Woodward, 50, says she can’t find peace.
“If Zahnia was sick and had died, I think I could have made peace with it, but she was murdered, taken from us and I am angry and hurt that God made this happen,” says the ouma.
Last night the family and community were to hold a candlelight vigil for Zahnia.
“She was my entire life and they took her from me and I will make them all pay,” Cindy says.
Police spokesperson Captain FC van Wyk confirms one suspect has been arrested so far.
“A murder and attempted murder case was opened for investigation. Sterling investigations by Organised Crime Unit led to the arrest of a 31-year-old suspect of Hout Bay.”
The man is due to appear in the Wynberg Magistrates’ Court today.