Pretoria - Meet Caiphus Nemavhadwa, a father of four who worked as a driver until September 9 when he was severely assaulted by a mob who accused him of being Mamelodi’s serial killer following the discovery of three young women’s bodies in the township.
He was rescued by police and spent 10 days in hospital, nursing injuries suffered in the assault.
He has vowed never to return to Mamelodi, the township he once called home.
Rumours circulated in the community that a suspected killer was posing as a taxi driver, picking up women and then torturing and murdering them.
Police moved quickly to rubbish those claims, saying the modus operandi was different in all of the three murder cases. Police also said they could not link Nemavhadwa, a taxi driver, to any of the murders.
But this was not enough to placate the angry community.
An angry mob set alight Nemavhadwa’s home and torched his two vehicles. Residents claimed that in one of the cars they had found wire and blood in the boot. They claimed the blood was that of the victims and that the wire was used to tie the victims’ limbs.
Nemavhadwa’s woes began when Katlego Ndlovu’s naked and battered body was found early in September near a reservoir in Mame-lodi after she had gone missing.
He was allegedly abducted by a group of about eight men the night before Ndlovu’s funeral.
The men suspected him of being behind the murder of the 23-year-old but needed to take him to a witness they believed could pin him to the murder.
He was taken to the house of Ndlovu’s boyfriend, but his parents did not allow him out of the house as there were no police officers present. The boyfriend was with Ndlovu when she disappeared.
One of the men told Nemavhadwa they suspected he was the taxi driver who drove the couple on the night Ndlovu disappeared. The taxi driver allegedly dropped of Ndlovu’s boyfriend first and then disappeared with the young woman.
The men allowed Nemavhadwa to go home when the boyfriend refused to be part of the identification process. But that was only the beginning of his nightmare.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, September 6, the same men arrived at his home with police officers. He was taken to the Mamelodi police station for questioning. An informal identity parade was conducted and Ndlovu’s boyfriend said he did not know Nemavhadwa. Police then released him.
On Tuesday, September 9, his world was turned upside down when an angry mob gathered outside his shack accusing him of murdering Ndlovu and another woman, Letta Letsoalo. Nemavhadwa was the only one at home. His wife, Christine, was at work and their four children, aged between 1 and 17, were at school.
A large crowd gathered outside his yard. “Some jumped into the yard, others broke into the house. One of the people who were in the house was a police officer. I asked him to help me and stop the people from damaging my property but he said there was nothing he could do.”
Things got out of hand. Residents torched his shack and he jumped out of the window to avoid being burnt. But when he jumped out, they pounced on him and badly assaulted him. Nemavhadwa does not remember any of this; he only saw it all on television footage.
Police intervened and he was taken to the Steve Biko Academic Hospital. He was treated for 10 days for burns on his arm, a broken jaw, fractured cheekbone and head trauma. With scars visible on his head and side of his face, Nemavhadwa said he was having difficulty eating as his jaw was broken.
Now, more than a month after the incident, Nemavhadwa has moved from Mamelodi. He now lives with his family at an undisclosed location. He still struggles to understand why the residents turned on him. “I’ve lost everything. My children and wife lost everything. I do not know how I am going to start rebuilding our lives.”
Christine lives with some relatives while the children are staying with other relatives.
“There is no way we can go back there because we are afraid of being victimised. We have lost everything. I had to get new birth certificates for the children,” Christine said. The children’s education was affected because they missed lessons, she said.
“The hardest thing is being away from my family. Even if they live with relatives, you still do not know how they are,” said Nemavhadwa.
Christine said the children were not coping at school. “They are being victimised and mocked. The worst was when their father’s name was mentioned in the papers.”
Images of a bloodied and battered Nemavhadwa were published and broadcast on television. “It was hard to make sense of what we were seeing, especially when we saw him jumping out of the window during the attack, and seeing pictures of him in newspapers. It was hard to deal with and it impacted on us negatively,” said Christine.
Malakia Nemavhadwa, Nemavhadwa’s brother, said he was unhappy with the treatment they received from police officers. The first three days Nemavhadwa was in hospital he was handcuffed and under police guard.
Malakia said police stopped guarding him without giving any reason. “They treated him like a suspect and all of a sudden they just left. We were told they would do DNA tests to see if he was linked to the murders, but we have received no feedback,” Malakia said.
The family say now all they want is for the police to help mediate a meeting between the family and Mamelodi residents. Malakia said: “We would like the police to have a meeting with us and the community and inform them that Caiphus is not a murderer.”
However, police denied the claims and said investigating officers were in contact with the family about the investigation. He was arrested on allegations of murder but when the case was taken to court the prosecutor declined to prosecute and instructed the police to do further investigations, said police spokeswoman Captain Doniah Mothutsane.
“Overall the police are following all the leads. No arrests have been made as yet. We are appealing to anyone who might have information that could lead to the identification and arrest of the suspect/s to call 086 001 0111 or contact the nearest police station,” she said.
Pretoria News