Johannesburg – The man accused of killing his girlfriend and burying her in his backyard has said he does not want to apply for bail.
He made his first appearance at the Moretele Magistrate’s Court in Temba on Monday, where he is facing a charge of murder.
The man had handed himself in and confessed to killing his 36-year-old girlfriend Meisie Molefe last year.
But Molefe’s aunt, Letta Mokgage, said: “We do not want him in jail, we want him out.”
She said she wanted Dube to get free bail so he could take care of his 3-year-old daughter.
“If he could kill the child’s mother then he must have had a plan to take care of their child,” Mokgage said.
The accused had hurt the entire family badly, she said.
They were in shock and disbelief when he handed himself over to the police last week, she said.
“We have asked him numerous times about Meisie’s whereabouts but he insisted that she went to her ‘people’ while he knows that he killed her,” she said.
Thabo Dube, 37, handed himself in at the Temba police station last Thursday, and confessed to having murdered, burnt and buried his girlfriend in his Stinkwater, Hammanskraal, backyard.
He had reported his girlfriend (Molefe) missing on October 27 last year and said she went missing on October 8.
Three months later, he decided to confess to what had really happened to his girlfriend. He told police that they had had an argument on October 6, and said he had hit her with a steel object which killed her.
He then dragged her to the backyard, burnt the body and tossed it in a hole at around 1am. He said he used petrol and oil to burn her.
Forensics began the exhumation of the body on Thursday afternoon with no luck. They continued on Friday morning and discovered Molefe’s burnt remains in the afternoon.
The court hearing was postponed to Monday.