Blue-blooded policewoman packs for Australia
A WELL-KNOWN face in policing circles and in the community, Louise Mulder, a Toti detective has resigned after 23 years in the service.
Following her resignation on 31 December, Louise is now preparing to relocate to Australia in a few months. “My sister lives there and my parents and brother will also be moving shortly, so it makes sense for me to follow, as all my family will be there.”
A Kuswag matriculant, she joined the police in 1991, straight after school and trained in Pretoria. She was posted to Toti SAP and after three months in uniform, moved to the detective branch.
Her only time away from Toti was between 2002 and 2007 when she worked in an undercover operation in Durban. After the operation concluded she returned to Toti.
Initially, Louise had no plans to join the police. “I had decided to be a welfare worker as I wanted to help people. I realised I was too soft and would have ended up with a house full of children, so I did the next best thing, joined the police, where I was also able to help people.”
Her passion as a detective was in securing successful drug convictions. “For two years I worked undercover with the Organised Crime Unit, after hours, outside of my regular duties to arrest a Nigerian drug kingpin operating in Toti. Although he has not been sentenced as yet, he has been sitting in prison for the last five years. During our investigation, we found he had 10 runners in Toti and on looking at his phone records, we ascertained he received up to 4,000 phone calls a month from Toti residents.”
Although Louise has worked on hundreds of cases, a case which continues to haunt her is that of a three-month-old baby who was kidnapped in Toti in 2000. “Three years ago, the detectives who had initially worked on the case re-opened the docket. We re-looked at all the evidence, but we got nowhere.”
According to Louise when working on cases it is often difficult to leave work at the office when around family and friends. But inspite of the many challenges she faced, she said, 'my blood will always be blue'.
“Although I have left, I will miss my job and colleagues. I want to thank my family, partner, Rassie Erasmus for his encouragement and inspiration; Leon Joone of the CCPO; Jaco Pienaar whom I also worked with closely and the public for their support.
