Pretoria - The two sons of murdered Faerie Glen resident Denise Stratford, who was killed at the Mooikloof Office Park, east of Pretoria, cried inconsolably as their mother’s murderer was sentenced to life imprisonment plus a further 20 years for robbing her of her car.
Brandon and Duane Stratford were close to their mother and are still battling to come to terms with her death, the Pretoria High Court heard on Tuesday.
The sons, their partners and their father sat in the public gallery with their arms around one another when Judge Nico Coetzee told security guard Jimmy Mahlaba, 26, that he would have to serve the maximum sentence for the gruesome and callous killing of 55-year-old Denise.
“Greed was the motive for the killing,” the judge said. Denise had died a particularly cruel death as she was shot in the face on the night of November 23, 2011 while working late, the judge said.
The wounded, but still breathing, woman was thrown into a drain where she drowned.
Mahlaba, one of the security guards on duty at the office park that night, took her car after killing her. It was found the next day, parked in a yard next to the room in Mamelodi where Mahlaba stayed.
When the police searched his room, they found the clothes he had worn the previous night. A bloodstain was clearly visible on the shirt. The blood was found to be Denise’s through DNA tests. The cartridges found at the scene came from Mahlaba’s service pistol.
But from the start he was adamant he had nothing to do with the woman’s murder and had an explanation for all the evidence against him.
He said his colleague, Obed Chauke, who was on duty with him that night, took his firearm and later gave it back. He was not aware of the bloodstain on his shirt and only saw it when the police pointed it out, he explained.
Mahlaba also said that it was raining that night and while he took a nap, Chauke wore his raincoat. When Chauke gave it back, the blood must have smeared on his (Mahlaba’s) clothes, he said.
Mahlaba left work shortly before six that morning and walked down the road to find a taxi to take him home. Chauke came driving past in a white Polo (the car of the victim) and gave him a lift. But on their way Chauke got a call from friends to go out with them and he asked Mahlaba to take the car home, as he would fetch it later, he claimed.
But Judge Coetzee rejected this version and said everything pointed to Mahlaba, who, during a pointing-out of the crime scene, had also made certain confessions.
The police searched in vain for Chauke, but it is understood they have now intensified their search for this possible second suspect.
The Stratford family said former investigating officer in the Oscar Pistorius murder case, Hilton Botha, who has left the SAPS, had been involved in searching for Chauke. The attempted murder charges Botha is facing - and which made headlines during the Pistorius bail application earlier this year - resulted from this probe.
It is alleged Botha fired shots at a taxi he apparently believed the suspect was travelling in as a passenger.
“We just have the highest praise for Hilton and the other police on how they handled my mother’s case. They did not only act with professionalism, but also with compassion. This case has also taken its toll on Hilton,” Duane Stratford told the Pretoria News.
Botha on Tuesday sat in the public gallery with the family during sentencing proceedings. The Stratford brothers said Botha was now more like a friend to the family.
Trevor Stratford, who was married to Denise, although the couple did not live together, pleaded with the court for the harshest sentence. Asked by the defence whether he did not believe in forgiveness, he said “for a person who did such a horrendous, horrible thing, I believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”
He said his family, and especially his sons, were still being counselled as they cannot come to terms with their mother’s death. He pointed at his two sobbing sons in the public gallery, tears running down his face.
Pretoria News