Triple murder: 3 accused deny all

06/11/2012 Family members of the late Thifhelimbilu Mashau, (from left) Nelson Tshitema (father) Mpho Masibigiri (cousin) and Nemandalale Nedzeni (uncle) leave Pretoria High court. Picture: Thobile Mathonsi

06/11/2012 Family members of the late Thifhelimbilu Mashau, (from left) Nelson Tshitema (father) Mpho Masibigiri (cousin) and Nemandalale Nedzeni (uncle) leave Pretoria High court. Picture: Thobile Mathonsi

Published Nov 7, 2012

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Pretoria - The suspected killers of a Theresa Park mother and her two young daughters deny any knowledge of the triple murder that sent shock waves through the community in 2010.

The body of Adivhaho Mashau, four, was discovered by a security officer and a policeman in a bedroom of the Mashau home with a balaclava pulled over her face.

The body of her eight-month-old sister, Avheani, was discovered face down in the bath.

The two children were allegedly suffocated.

The body of their mother, Thifhelimbilu Mashau, 28, was discovered two days later in a field in Ga-Rankuwa. She had apparently been abducted from her house.

Police said her underwear and trousers had been pulled down to her knees, patches of hair had been ripped out of her head and she had bruises on her face, back and a leg.

Sipho Masiqa, 34, Raymond Matshaba, 27, and Bradley Molefe, 34, have pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and to kidnapping, rape, and robbery with aggravating circumstances.

Masiqa and Molefe remained mum regarding their defence, while Matshaba said he had only assisted Mashau to hide her car, as she wanted to claim from insurance.

The State alleges the trio broke into Mashau’s home on the night of July 29/30, 2010, and strangled her two children. It is alleged they abducted Mashau and took her to Ga-Rankuwa, where they raped and murdered her.

They allegedly robbed Mashau of her red VW Polo and left her in the veld, where her body was discovered two days later by hunters.

Mashau’s friend Khathutshelo Tamabulana suspected something was wrong when she could not reach her. She saw the door to Mashau’s house was open and the car gone.

Tamabulana phoned a security company and the guards made the shocking discovery of the children’s bodies inside the house.

Masiqa’s girlfriend, Tshepiso Mogotsi, told Pretoria High Court Judge Bert Bam that she saw her boyfriend, a woman and two other men driving around in a red Polo. Masiqa later returned home with the car, a plasma television set, a DVD player and a computer.

Mogotsi said Masiqa told her he was going to sell the items he had found in Theresa Park.

Another witness, Jacob Molapo, told the court on Tuesday he was hosting a function at his house when Masiqa arrived in a red Polo. “He said he wanted to park the car there… I asked him whose car it is and he told me it is his… He said his friend gave him the car.”

Molapo said Masiqa returned the next day and told him he needed tools as he wanted to remove the car doors.

“I asked him why… he told me he was going to sell it.”

Molapo said he became suspicious about why his friend had said the car was his, yet he wanted to remove the doors and sell them. He became even more suspicious when Masiqa later showed him a newspaper clipping about the murder and robbery in Theresa Park and said he wanted to burn the vehicle.

“I asked him why not just leave the vehicle as it is, so the police could find it. But he said no, he wanted to delete the fingerprints.”

Molapo said he told his friend he could not burn the car in his yard. Masiqa later towed the car away.

A trial-within-a-trial started on Tuesday as Masiqa is disputing the legality of a pointing out to police. He claimed he was assaulted and his rights not explained to him.

Pretoria News

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