A 31-year-old Limpopo mother whose four children were brutally murdered by their father says she will never forgive her husband, and does not want to see him ever again.
Sylvia Monyela’s husband, Lucas Phasha, 52, was sentenced to four terms of life imprisonment in the Limpopo High Court on Friday for killing the four children – Katlego, 9, Joyce, 7, Tshepo, 5, and Adel, 3 – after accusing their mother of neglecting them and cheating on him. The children were found dead at two separate locations in Selatole section of GaPhasha village, near Burgersfort, on February 17 last year.
“He killed my kids like he was slaughtering chickens, and I will never forgive him. He must rot in jail. Though I will never see my children again, I'm happy that I will never see Lucas’s face again,” said an emotional Monyela.
Monyela told Sowetan that if Phasha were to ask for forgiveness in future she would never forgive him.
“I will never consider his apology because he has taken everything away from me. I will never forgive him when he had taken away my blessings from God,” she said.
She said it pained her that Phasha had never shown remorse or confessed to the killings.
“It deeply hurt me that he didn’t even say sorry and all he did was to tell the court all sorts of lies.”
Judge Gerrit Muller sentenced Phasha, a former lawyer, to four terms of life imprisonment.
A visibly defeated Phasha said he could not show remorse as some of his evidence was ignored in court.
“The state didn’t want to give me my phone to show that I’m innocent. How can I show remorse when my evidence is ignored, and there is no evidence against me except the said confession by one of the witnesses,” said Phasha.
He said he was considering appealing the verdict.
Three of the children were found hacked to death, while the fourth, the youngest, had her head bludgeoned with a stone.
Before the incident, Phasha posted on his Facebook page that his wife was seeing another man and she would never see her children again.
The police arrested Phasha after he confessed to his neighbour that he had killed his children.
Muller said: “This is a horrific crime and the accused is not a candidate for rehabilitation as he has previous convictions of murder and attempted murder.”
National Prosecution Authority spokesperson Mashudu Malabi-Dzhangi said they welcomed the sentence as this would send a strong message to would-be perpetrators that the criminal justice system would catch up with them.
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