adminPamela Shumba Senior Reporter
MOUNTING debts drove a Bulawayo businessman to suicide when he shot himself dead on Monday, police sources said.
Derrick Wilke, 48, of Morningside allegedly shot himself in the head while his wife was in Harare where she was spending Christmas with relatives.
Wilke reportedly left her a suicide note written: “I left a parcel for you” with $12,900 in his car.
Police sources told Chronicle that Wilke, who was having problems with his wife, had a debt of $20,000 that he was failing to pay.
“Police officers who attended the scene thought the money that he left in the car was meant for his family but it was later established that he had borrowed $20,000 and was failing to pay it back. He also owed a number of people money,” said the source.
“When his wife was questioned by the police, she admitted that they were having marital problems, which usually emanated from his short temper and frustration.”
The source said Wilke decided to take his life after there was pressure on him to pay the debt.
Wilke, who ran a mining equipment servicing company, locked himself in his workshop along Bristol road in Belmont before blowing his head off with a pistol.
Police officers were forced to break into his office to take out his body.
He reportedly left home at on Sunday night and went to the workshop after his wife insisted that she was going to Harare for the Christmas holiday, an idea that he was against.
Wilke’s wife told his relatives that he had not returned home, prompting them to drive to his workshop to look for him.
They reportedly found his car parked outside and called out his name and banged the door but he did not respond, forcing them to call the police, who broke into the workshop and found his lifeless body in a pool of blood.
A neighbour told Chronicle that Wilke seemed to be doing well in business but looked miserable most of the times.
Online Reporter