Kimberley - A fight between two best friends over 50 cents resulted in the death of a 17-year-old teenager at the weekend.
John More was stabbed to death, allegedly by his close friend Collen Mthembu, 19, at Easy Tavern in Ritchie around 1am on Sunday morning.
Mthembu appeared in the Kimberley Magistrate’s Court on Monday.
Gladys More, John’s devastated mother, on Monday questioned why her son had to lose his life over 50 cents.
More said the two were close friends and that she could not believe her son died over something so measly.
“My heart is broken. I can’ t believe this. I wonder how he (Mthembu) feels because he claims he didn’t mean to stab my son to death,” said a heartbroken More.
She said Mthembu must pay for what he did.
“They must give him a double-life sentence because he killed my son over nothing and I will never see my son again,” said More.
It is believed that Mthembu came to fetch More on Saturday afternoon to go and sell beer bottles at a local tavern.
A fight broke out between the pair when Mthembu saw More made 50 cents more profit from the sale of his bottles.
Kiddy Mageu, who was the deceased’s guardian while his mother was away from home working in Kimberley, said she too could not believe that her cousin was dead because she saw him just seconds before he passed away.
“I was in the tavern’s TV room and I saw him there. We did not talk and he didn’t see me. I saw him when I went outside and saw that he had blood on his hands and was cleaning his hands with this other guy’s beanie. I gave him a scolding from afar, but he just walked past me and didn’t even see it was me. I then went outside and someone came to tell me that John (the deceased) was stabbed and was lying on the floor,” said Mageu.
She said she then went inside and saw people were trying to resuscitate him.
“I saw people standing around him. When I realised that he was gone, I called his mother. My heart was broken and I could not believe it,” Mageu said.
An employee at the tavern, Mosadiwapula Banda, said John came to her and asked her to call an ambulance after he had been stabbed.
“He came to the counter and said I must call an ambulance because he had been stabbed. He was soaked in blood. I saw the wound on his neck. He fell down in front of the counter and I ran outside and tried to call an ambulance. When I came back I saw a group of people around him and two men who said they were medical workers giving him mouth-to-mouth,” said Banda.
She said although they had incidents where fights broke out at the tavern, this was the first time someone had died.
“People tend to fight when they get drunk, but no one has ever been killed here. There is security on the premises, but on the morning of this incident they had already knocked off,” said Banda
She added that she also never had any problems with the deceased.
“John was a very friendly guy. I never had any problems with him,” Banda said.
More said the owner of the tavern must also take responsibility for her son’s death because there was lot of under-age drinking that was taking place at the tavern.
However, the owner of the tavern, Marius Seiler, said he employed locals as security officers.
“The security officers are local people from the area. They do not ask for identity documents because they know residents. We don’t allow children in the tavern and we search customers for weapons,” said Seiler.
He said there had been reports of violence.
“A fight will break out every now and then, but nothing of this sort has ever happened before. This is the first time,” said Seiler.
The police said they are investigating the incident.
“It is alleged the deceased was stabbed with a sharp object. The circumstances surrounding the fatal incident is not yet known,” said police spokeswoman, Lieutenant Andrea Cloete.
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