MAN SENTENCED TO FOUR LIFE TERMS FOR KILLING HIS FAMILY
The High Court of South Africa, Eastern Cape Division, sitting in Sterkspruit, sentenced Thobani Kesa (39), to four life terms for the murder of his father, mother, sister, and his niece, over R20 000 dispute. The four were found burnt beyond recognition in their home Tienbank Locality, in the district of Sterkspruit on 22 July 2018.
Before the commission of the crimes, Kesa and his brother were asked by their parents to build a house at their homestead and were promised payment for their labour. They were paid a deposit and they started constructing the house but did not finish. They demanded payment for the balance despite not having finished and that led to a quarrel.
The two brothers approached the local Magistrates’ Small Claims Court demanding R20 000. In the presence of the court clerk dealing with their claim, Kesa accused his mother of being a witch and dared her to pay him or face death. As a result, his mother and father obtained a protection order against the two brothers, and they went to stay in another village.
When the deceased persons were discovered on a fateful morning, police also collected blood spatters on the floor of the burnt house, and they found Kesa with blood-soiled clothes, and he was arrested. The blood found on his clothes was linked through DNA to the blood found on the scene, which belongs to his mother, an indication that the deceased may have been assaulted before being burnt to death.
Arguing in aggravation of sentence, Adv. Luvuyo Pomolo described Kesa as a cunning criminal who expressed no emotion about what happened to his family. “Not every day that one hears of a case, in which a person has wiped out almost his entire family from the face of the earth”, he added. Judge Mbulelo Jolwana, agreed, adding that Kesa is just a dangerous criminal, whose cruelty knows no boundaries.
The court sentenced Kesa to five years for arson and declared him unfit to possess a firearm.
