Widow guilty of hubby, hitman’s murders

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File photo

Published Dec 1, 2015

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Pretoria - A widow has been convicted of two murders after contracting a man to kill her husband by hanging him in the bathroom of their Standerton home, but when the alleged hitman blackmailed her for more money, she had him killed as well.

The neatly dressed Portia Tsotsetsi, 27, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, appeared calm after Judge Tati Mokgoka, sitting in the high court in Pretoria, convicted her of murdering her husband, Nzimeni Sithatu and the alleged hitman, Dumisani Ngubeni.

Tsotsetsi claimed she had nothing to do with the two murders. She had taken a sleeping tablet on the night of February 21, 2012. and went to bed. When she woke up, she said, she discovered her husband hanging from the ceiling in the bathroom.

It is claimed he was first killed in the bedroom and that she and Ngubeni packed the blood-drenched bedding into a black plastic bag.

Ngubeni kept the bag with the soiled linen and apparently blackmailed the widow for more money for not spilling the beans on her.

Ngubeni was killed three months later on May 16, 2012, after Tsotsetsi called him to her home after “agreeing” to pay him for his silence. When he arrived, she and co-accused Stanley Dube, 35, overpowered him and stabbed him to death.

They loaded his body into a vehicle and dumped it in a river.

Dube was on Monday also convicted of murdering Ngubeni.

Witnesses testified during the trial - held at the Delmas Circuit Court, but transferred to the high court for judgment - that Tsotsetsi wanted her husband dead as he had threatened to divorce her.

She felt that she would lose everything if he dumped her, but would be financially better of if he was dead.

According to witnesses, she initially tried to kill him by giving him muti or potions - some made from crocodile parts.

When this did not work, the witnesses said, she offered some of them money to kill her husband. She secured the help of Ngubeni and a third accused, Motsamai Mahlasela. He was a diagnosed schizophrenic, but died of unknown causes before the conclusion of the trial.

The three of them killed her husband so that it seemed as if he had hanged himself. The cause of death was initially given as “consistent with hanging” and he was buried without any foul play being suspected.

But his body was exhumed nearly three months later after Ngubeni was murdered and the widow came under suspicion.

When police came to her home shortly after her husband was killed, they noticed that all the bedding, including the pillowcases, had been removed. She explained it was in the wash, but it emerged it was drenched in blood and placed in a black bag which Ngubeni kept.

After he demanded more money from the widow - she initially paid him about R4 000 for the killing - she phoned him to come to her home. Neighbours saw him, Dube and Tsotsetsi going into her home.

They later saw her and Dube carrying “something wrapped in a blanket” out of the house and loading it into a car.

The neighbours said they found it weird that the widow and Dube later burnt blankets and a carpet over an outside fire. The widow explained she was simply spring-cleaning her house. She was arrested shortly afterwards.

Sentencing will resume on January 19.

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Pretoria News

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