A North West woman allegedly offered hitmen R15,000 to kill her husband, who she said was an abusive cheater who had impregnated another woman.
After the hitmen killed Aubrey Molefe Mfolo, her taxi boss husband, Rebecca Vuyelwa Mfolo offered them an additional R15,000 so they could go to a sangoma and cleanse themselves.
This is according to confessions made by Mfolo, and one of the hitmen, Lucky Kudumane.
Mfolo, Bafana Mototsoe, Kudumane and Sfiso Manana appeared in the Pretoria high court on Tuesday, where they face charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Kudumane and Mototsoe face an additional charge of possessing an unlicensed firearm.
A man known only as Lucas is believed to be the person who pulled the trigger in January 2023, and is still at large.
In a confession that was deemed admissible yesterday, Kudumane said a woman called Dineo, together with Mototsoe, told him that they had a job for him to kill someone’s husband.
He said the two told him that Mfolo had hired hitmen before, but they could not agree on the price.
Kudumane agreed to do the job, then went with Dineo and Mototsoe to Brits, where they showed him the deceased’s house.
A few days later, Dineo, Lucas, a woman called Kethiwe, and Mototsoe – a taxi driver employed by Mfolo – went to the deceased’s house.
The door was opened by Mfolo’s 17-year-old grand-daughter, who led Kudumane, Mototsoe and Lucas to the bedroom where her father and mother were sleeping.
They tied him up and bundled him into one of his minibus taxis driven by Manana.
I lost my job because he was jealous and possessive. He had an affair with another lady from Bapong and impregnated her.
— Rebecca Vuyelwa Mfolo
“We drove to the cemetery where Lucas took the gun and shot him,” Kudumane said in his confession.
He said after they killed him, they went back to the house to inform Mfolo, and she told them she would give them R15,000 for cleansing.
Three days later, the group that had gone to the house, except for Lucas, was arrested together with Mfolo. Dineo became a state witness, and Khethiwe was never charged.
Mfolo, whose confession was made the night she was arrested and has been accepted by the court, claims that she had hired the hitmen because she had suffered abuse from her husband.
“I suffered so many years. I was sleeping next door for my safety with [my] kids because the abuse never stopped; it continued. I lost my job because he was jealous and possessive. He had an affair with another lady from Bapong and impregnated her,” she said.
Mfolo said there was a point when her husband wanted to set her alight, and she had returned to her parental home. After having had enough of the abuse, she spoke to Manana, who told her he would “look for the people who can do the job for us”.
On the night of the murder, she said, her husband was asleep when he was woken by people beating him up. After assaulting him and taking some of his belongings, they left with him in the taxi.
The case continues on Wednesday.
SowetanLIVE
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