Durban - Eighteen-year-old Falakhe Khumalo had spent a year looking for an Indian, coloured or white woman’s head so that in return a Sangoma would give him R2 million.
Given muti to protect him from being seen or traced by the police, he had “stalked” Desiree Murugan, luring her to the Shallcross sports stadium where he had sex with her before his accomplices stabbed her 195 times, the Durban Regional Court heard on Thursday.
Khumalo, called “cunning beyond his years” by the magistrate, admitted that after the stabbing they each took turns to cut off the head of the 39-year-old mother of one with a bush knife.
Pleading guilty, Khumalo expressed remorse and apologised to Murugan’s family, who were sitting in court, for allowing his desire for money to affect his judgement.
But he swore at a Daily News reporter, showing her the middle finger as he was being led away to the holding cells by court orderlies.
Murugan’s headless body had been found by municipal staff at the sports ground last month. Her head was found a few days later in the Imfume area on the South Coast. The police, led by investigating officers, Robin Singh and Cleo Loganathan, had arrested six suspects - sangoma Sibonakaliso Makhosi, 32, his apprentice, Vusumuzi Gumede, 30, Khumalo and three minors aged 16 and 17.
Khumalo told the court in his plea that he had visited Makhosi in June last year when he had suffered from a sexually transmitted disease. He was treated and then asked Makhosi if he could heal someone who suffered from a stroke. Makhosi apparently said he could, but for R50 000.
Khumalo did not have the money so Makhosi proposed that Khumalo get him the head of an Indian, white or coloured female and he would then give him R2m, the court heard.
The three minor co-accused allegedly agreed to the plan as they also wanted money.
Khumalo said Makhosi told them all they needed was muti to protect them from being seen committing the murder so that the police could not trace them. They were given the muti and told to tie it on their stomachs when they killed the victim.
He said they devised a plan in terms of which one of them would look for a sex worker “that we will kill”.
On August 17, Khumalo and the three male minors came across Murugan.
One of the minors, he said, carried a bag with an Okapi knife and a bush knife and he was going to hide in the bushes at the sports field.
Khumalo told Murugan he wanted to buy her services and she agreed. They went to the sports field where she was given R100 for oral sex and intercourse. While having sex, one of the minor accused came at her with an okapi knife. When she saw him, Khumalo put his hand over her mouth and held her tight while the minor stabbed her several times.
They moved her body and each took turns to chop her head. The following day, they took Murugan’s head to Makhosi who told them they were going to be rich, the court heard.
Khumalo cut off Murugan’s eyelashes and he said Makhosi dissected the head with the bush knife and took out the brain and the tongue and placed it in two tins. Makhosi allegedly instructed Gumede to bury the tins and the head at the back of his house and told the others to come back on August 21 to get the money.
Prosecutor Kuveshni Pillay said Murugan, despite being stabbed so many times, was alive before she was beheaded.
She labelled their deed as witchcraft and not traditional medicine and argued for a life sentence, saying Khumalo had a choice to say no and knew what he was doing was wrong.
Sentencing Khumalo to life imprisonment, magistrate Anand Maharaj said the teen had showed cunning beyond his years.
The minors were expected to plead on Thursday, however, Pillay told the magistrate that the senior public prosecutor’s office was not prepared to accept their pleas.
Their Legal Aid attorney, Thobile Sigcau, told the court that his supervisor had helped with the plea and had included a paragraph which the three accused were not happy with.
Sigcau said he needed to discuss the matter with his office as this paragraph was not in the original plea.
Maharaj agreed to roll over the matter until on Friday.
Desiree Murugan’s sister, Jennet, said later that her family were still traumatised by the gruesome murder. “The brutality of it all,” she said trying to fight back her tears. “No one deserves to die in this way. No one has the right to take a life.”
She described the emotions of having a sealed coffin for the funeral and how Murugan’s 6-year-old son and the rest of the family could not see her for the last time.
Calling the killing cold and barbaric, she said her sister was a “happy-go-lucky” sociable person who grew up in a cultural environment. She was her “father’s favourite” and often helped him at their local temple. While working in the catering division at Chatsmed Hospital she experimented with drugs and became a sex worker.
Her family had sent her for rehabilitation and this had led to her father falling into depression.
A year ago, their father died from cancer and their mother was still mourning his loss when Murugan was brutally killed.
Their mother, who suffers from hypertension and diabetes, had not been told of the details of Murugan’s death, Jennet said, because she could have a stroke or heart attack.
Daily News