Johannesburg – Journalist Chris Louw, who was found shot in the head with an AK-47 yesterday, committed suicide, North West police said.

Superintendent Lesego Metsi said: “He told his wife to stay indoors, then went outside. There’s a place he planted some flowers, a special place to him we understand. And in that place is where he shot himself with an AK-47 rifle.”

Louw took his own life while his wife was home with their two children. He was 56.

Police had found suicide notes saved on Louw’s computer. The first was dated November 29.

“He wrote a suicide note on the 29th. He changed the date to the 30th and he couldn’t take his life then,” Metsi said. Police have also found a hard copy of a suicide note, dated the 30th.

“We’re investigating where he found this gun because his wife confirmed he did not own it. It had some rust, so it looks like it was hidden somewhere.”

“It’s always a shock and he was an old colleague and friend,” said Foeta Krige, who found Louw’s body at his farm near Hartbeespoort Dam.

Krige said Louw went missing on Monday afternoon shortly after 2pm. The local neighbourhood watch had then searched for him to no avail.

Krige had driven over to provide support to the family. He said his former boss at Radio Sonder Grense had just secured a contract to write a book. He had, however, been concentrating on a crime wave in the area in his most recent writings for Beeld newspaper.

He was also known for his controversial open letter to the late Willem de Klerk entitled, “Boetman is die bliksem in (Boetman is angry)”.

The letter to De Klerk, a National Party opinion-maker and brother of former president FW de Klerk, accused the older generation of Afrikaner leaders of political cowardice by sending the younger generation to war to defend apartheid. – Sapa