Pretoria – After long hours of digging on Friday, police finally found the remains of a 36-year-old woman buried in the garden of the home of her partner and father of her child.
Stinkwater police dug up the body of Meisie Molefe, who has been missing since October last year.
Her boyfriend allegedly reported Molefe missing at Temba police station on October 27 last year.
He told officers she went missing on October 8.
Provincial SAPS spokesman Captain Kay Makhubela said that after months of investigations someone went to the police station and said he suspected the boyfriend had killed her. Makhubela said that when the boyfriend heard that they were looking for him, he handed himself in on Thursday at the Temba police station.
“He said he wanted to tell us the truth as to what happened to his girlfriend. He then confessed that he had an argument with Molefe on October 6, last year,” he said.
The man may not be named until he has made his first appearance in court.
Makhubela said the suspect confessed that he hit Molefe with a steel object, dragged her to the backyard, burnt and tossed her in a hole at around 1am.
“The boyfriend said he used petrol and oil to burn her. And as a result, it has been difficult for the forensics to exhume her body,” Makhubela said.
Forensics began the exhumation of the body on Thursday afternoon without any luck.
They continued the process on Friday morning and discovered some of Molefe’s remains in the afternoon.
Sello Molefe, brother of the dead woman, said forensics found a skull with the brain still intact.
Her knee also still had some flesh on it.
Elmon Magoro, father of Molefe, said they were surprised when his daughter did not show up for her cousin’s farewell.
“We did not think anything bad would have happened to her; we only thought she could not make it due to other reasons,” he said.
Magoro said he became suspicious when teachers at a school where his daughter worked as a cook asked about her whereabouts.
“I received a call from the teachers and they told me Meisie was not at work and asked if I knew where she was.
“I called home in Stinkwater and they told me she was with her boyfriend at the time,” he said.
He described his daughter as a respectful, caring and loving person.
He said the two loved each other and he never suspected that the boyfriend would do anything that cruel to his daughter.
He said he asked the suspect about his daughter’s whereabouts, but he told him that they had fought and she left him without a word.
“I trusted that boy when he told me he did not know where my daughter was, but I became suspicious when he did not want to accompany us to traditional healers.”
Magoro said were it up to him, he would have told the suspect to exhume his daughter’s remains since he was the one who buried her.
He said that he also wanted the suspect to pay all funeral costs and bury his daughter.
“Meisie was still mourning her first born child (a teenage daughter who died about three months ago) and now this,” said the tearful father.
He said Molefe was left with three children after she lost her first-born less than three months ago.
The suspect is the father of the youngest of Molefe’s three children.
Family and neighbours said there was no sign that the two had been fighting or that the Molefe was being abused.
“We have never seen or heard them fight except the one time that the girlfriend burnt her boyfriend’s clothes and bed sheets."
The suspect’s neighbour, Ennie Machaka, said that since Molefe went “missing” last year, the suspect began to burn dirt on the same spot that the forensics dug on Friday.
“There was, however, nothing suspicious about that as everyone is allowed to burn dirt in their yards,” she said.
She described the suspect as a loving person who got along with everyone in the community.
The suspect is expected to appear in the Moretele Magistrate's Court on Monday.