Stealing the dead

September 2007. Soweto.

Two carjackers see a hearse parked outside a home in the City of Mofolo. They steal the hearse, complete with coffin in the rear. They use the vehicle to drive to a bar where they commence a drinking spree. Later that evening they run out of petrol. They go into the nearest bar to ask the locals to help them push the hearse to a gas station, explaining that the corpse is a relative and that they are on their way to bury him. They do not explain why they are drunk and out of petrol at night in Soweto. They are then arrested.

Is this moral turpitude, or is this a symptom of something even more sinister.