Cape Town - The family of a Gugulethu tavern owner convicted of killing his wife have been torn apart in the aftermath of the killing of Ntombekhaya Vokozela in 2013, the Western Cape High Court heard on Monday.
The couple’s children were still suffering from depression and anxiety almost five years after the incident took place, according to prosecutor Lenro Badenhorst.
He said that subsequent to Ntombekhaya’s murder, the couple’s child, Phinda Vokozela, was suicidal and on medication. She was seeing a psychiatrist.
Conflict was also dividing the family over the management of Thembile Vokozela’s popular tavern following his incarceration.
Family members accused his son, Mabhuti Vokozela, of running the liquor store into the ground.
The State proved that Thembile shot Ntombekhaya 12 times, with five of those shots to the back of her head, on December 28, 2013 - 20 days after she had laid an assault charge with the police.
Ntombekhaya was last seen with Thembile when they were at the liquor store on the day she was killed.
The following day, the couple did not answer their phones, and in the evening, police found Ntombekhaya’s lifeless body on the ground level of their house.
Thembile was found unconscious on the upper level of the house and taken to hospital.
Testifying in mitigation of sentence on Monday, Thembile’s younger sister Zingiswa said her brother’s children were unhappy “because their father is not there”.
“It’s not the same as when their father was around,” she said.
She added that she did not know of any fights or arguments between the couple prior to the shooting.
When Badenhorst asked her if she was aware Thembile had been arrested for assaulting his wife a month before he shot and killed her, Zingiswa said she was not.
When Badenhorst told her she was the one who had paid the bail money for Thembile’s release, she said she might have been asked to do so by her elders, and did not know why he had been arrested.
She said she could not remember paying the bail money for Thembile.
“I heard about that (arrest), but as a child we are not informed and do not get involved in issues related to elderly people, especially of two people (in a romantic relationship),” she said.
Badenhorst told her that Phinda had previously testified that Thembile and Ntombekhaya “would fight every night” about money.
Zingiswa said the environment Thembile’s children were living in since his arrest was “not safe” because Mabhuti drank alcohol a lot and passed out.
The case continues on Tuesday.