Durban — The mother of a woman who died after being stabbed multiple times by her boyfriend said that she hoped she could muster the courage to stay in court throughout proceedings as the killer is handed his sentence.
“I hope that I’m strong enough to stay and listen to everything. I broke (down) when I learnt last Friday that he had stabbed her more than 25 times, even in her privates. This animal snatched her from us. I can’t stand the sight of him, but I want to be strong,” said Lindiwe Mbhele, the mother of slain Zama Girlie Mthembu on Thursday.
The Durban Magistrate’s Court is to sentence Mlamuli Qaba, 43, at the end of October. He tendered his guilty plea last Friday. In it, he admitted following Mthembu after seeing her pass his shack at the Kenville Informal Settlement while she was going to her dwelling. He stabbed her all over her body in a fit of rage.
He fled to the Eastern Cape where he was arrested three weeks after the murder on Reconciliation Day.
Mbhele, 52, who is unemployed, is now raising Mthembu’s two sons aged 19 and 12. Qaba was not the father.
She and her grandchildren live in Empangeni, while Mthembu lived in Durban for work.
“The younger one cries every day, the elder one is coping but he has his days. I admit that I might not be making it any easier for them to cope. I see her clothes in the house and I cry, when I walk into the house she built, I cry. What he has done is barbaric and he deserves to be behind bars for the rest of his life,” said Mbhele.
She said she relied on the R350 Social Relief of Distress Grant to support the family and supplemented this with vegetables from her garden.
“When I went to register the youngest for the child support grant they said I could register him for a foster child grant. I am still waiting for it. Last year after she died, we were lucky she had a policy with a little money. (This) saw me being able to get school essentials and it was finished after that. That man changed my life forever, no Christmas, or any normal day, will ever be the same.”
Qaba was arrested by Greenwood Park police midway through a ritual where he was topless and the murder weapon was with him at the house of the traditional healer. In his plea, he said he had an altercation with a man who Mthembu had been talking to.
The State’s evidence is that Qaba confronted Mthembu about the protection order she had obtained against him.
Qaba said he had heard Mthembu’s voice while walking past a shack and when he went inside he found her conversing with two men.
While talking to her outside one of the men confronted Qaba for speaking harshly to Mthembu.
He went home to get a knife, but before he could leave his home with the knife Mthembu walked past and he followed her and killed her.
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