The family of Thembisile Yende have vowed to fight until justice is served on those behind her mysterious killing.
The grieving family wants to see their daughter’s killers behind bars before they put plans in motion to open a foundation in her name that would preserve her memory.
The man accused of killing Eskom employee Yende briefly appeared in the Springs Magistrate’s Court on Monday. The case was postponed to September 18 for further investigation.
David Ngwenya, a technician at the power utility, was denied bail last month after magistrate Cornell Pretorius said his evidence fell short of satisfying the court that exceptional circumstances existed.
Family spokesperson, Mboneni Yende, said the family was frustrated because two other suspects are still at large; only one has been arrested and is denying that he killed Yende.
He added that once the family knows that the other two suspects have been arrested then things will start to make sense to them.
“At the moment, nothing is really making sense. Ngwenya is denying everything,” said Mboneni.
He said they had not had any contact with the Ngwenya family and pleaded with them to come forward and inform the police about the whereabouts of the other two suspects.
The court heard that Yende was injected with a drug to weaken her, before she was beaten and strangled at an electricity supply substation.
The court also heard that Ngwenya and Yende were romantically involved.
The family denied that, saying the only person they knew to have been involved with Yende was her partner, only known as Paseka.
Mboneni also said Yende had complained about Ngwenya to her mother before she was murdered. However, it had nothing to do with them being in a relationship.
“We have given the information to the police and we were advised not to talk about it, as it is part of the investigations,” said Mboneni.
He said in the spirit of keeping Yende’s name alive, they had registered a foundation as a mediator between the police and crime victims. The family realised that most people lay charges that end up becoming cold cases.
They hope the new foundation, to be called the Thembisile Lucia Yende Foundation, would speed up the process for victims to get justice.
It is due to start operating around October.
The family also plans on having a march, “the active voices march”, on Thursday to hand over a memorandum to the minister of police and the Department of Justice. They said after Yende’s case, similar cases started being reported and they will be joining forces with other NGOs in Kwa-Thema.
They will be marching to Springs police station and have invited the family of Karabo Mokoena, who is suspected to have been murdered by her partner in May, to march with them.
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