Man to appear for killing wife over sex

Published Sep 3, 2015

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Kgopi Mabotja and Titus Thaba

JOHANNESBURG: Siblings Lindiwe* and Relebogile* were used to the sight of their father beating up their mother in their 20 years of marriage.

But they never imagined that he would one day stab her to death. Now, with their father due to appear in the Protea Magistrate’s Court next Tuesday for a bail hearing, the sisters fear for their lives.

August 15 was a particularly strange day for the family, who live in Soweto. Their father arrived home carrying bags of groceries – something he hasn’t done in years, according to Lindiwe, 22.

The family thought he was probably in a reconciliatory mood. After dropping the groceries on the kitchen table, the man started pacing up and down the house without talking to anyone.

The man, who retired from the South African Defence Force in March, then confronted his wife and demanded sex in front of their daughters.

“He asked mom why she was still married to him if she can’t give him sex,” Lindiwe recalled yesterday, speaking from her hospital bed at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital.

Her slain mother, who was a teacher at a local primary school, had applied for more than 20 protection orders in their years of marriage. On that fateful night, the mother had left their bedroom to sleep in Lindiwe’s bedroom.

“We usually put the heater on the door so that when he opens, we can hear him,” said Lindiwe.

While Lindiwe and her mother were asleep, he stormed inside the room and started shouting, demanding sex.

“It got real when he pulled the blankets. He had a knife in his hand. He then jumped on top of my mother and started stabbing her in the neck and stomach,” said Lindiwe.

As the stabbing continued, she said, the man kept checking her mother’s pulse to confirm that she was dead.

“He dragged my mom’s body like a dead dog…” said Lindiwe, fighting back tears.

Relebogile, 17, who was in the other room and realised what was happening, tried to run out of the house to call for help. But all the doors were locked and the security alarm system was cut.

Lindiwe leaned over her mother to protect her, but she too was attacked.

“He stabbed me (in) the neck and I started bleeding. He continued stabbing my mother on the stomach until her intestines were exposed.

“My mother never retaliated, she never said a word, but my father could not stop, he stabbed her so many times while my sister and I watched.”

The mother has since been buried.

* Not their real names

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