Schoolboy Mazwi Mkwanazi was only 15 when he approached a student teacher 10 years his senior and "proposed friendship".
She spurned his advances and their paths did not cross again until this year, when Nkulinga Ndala accused him of trying to cheat in an exam. Enraged at her attempts to "destroy his life", he stabbed her to death in front of his fellow pupils.
Now Mkwanazi, 18, who has pleaded guilty to the crime before KwaZulu-Natal Judge-President Vuka Tshabalala in the Durban High Court, is facing a future behind bars.
Mkwanazi does not fit the stereotype of a young criminal. He comes from a devout family from Mariannhill, near Pinetown.
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'I then realised she would make my life miserable' The second eldest of six children, he often helped look after his younger siblings.
He had a weekend job and, above this, helped look after the family goats.
On the whole he did well at school, was a class representative and did not drink or take drugs.
According to his mother, he was "reserved and quiet".
But underneath this, Mkwanazi was seething and could not forget what had happened in 2004. Because of his introverted nature, he did not open up to others about his feelings.
In his guilty plea before the court and in an interview with a probation officer, he told of how he had first met the attractive student teacher, Ndala, in 2004 when he was a pupil at Ndengetho High School.
He had fancied her, approached her and made advances.
She was shocked, he said, and told him he was far too young for her.
Mkwanazi claimed that Ndala had become vindictive towards him, finding fault with everything he did and "singling" him out. He claimed his life became so intolerable that he transferred to a new school, Thornwood Secondary, the following year.
This version, however, was not backed up by evidence, which showed that Ndala had only been a student teacher at the school for one month.
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