DIRECT IMPRISONMENT FOR THE TRIO WHO MURDERED TWO MINOR CHILDREN
The KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) High Court sitting in Mtunzini has sentenced three people to varied terms of imprisonment following their conviction for the murder of two minor children, aged nine and 10 years old, in the Nkandla area in March 2020. The first two accused (women) were related to the children, with one of them being the mother to the 10-year-old; and the third accused is a pastor from the area. Both these women believed that the two children were possessed by demonic spirits, alleging that they were sucking the blood out of one of the accused’s children. On 24 March 2020, the women invited the third accused to come over to their home and pray for the two children to drive out the demonic spirits. During the prayers, the children were assaulted with plastic pipes and a sjambok. They were also punched and burned with a two-plate stove.
The assaults on the two children caused the immediate death of the nine-year-old child. Thereafter, an anonymous tip-off alerted police to what was happening, and police arrived at the scene. The accused were arrested and the 10-year-old child who was still alive was taken to hospital. She died two weeks later. In the state’s case, Adv. Nathi Kunene led the evidence of eyewitness testimonies. Kunene also submitted Victim Impact Statements compiled by the family members of the deceased and facilitated by Court Preparation Officer Seneliso Sibanda. The family members mentioned that their lives have been devastatingly affected following the incident. They could not believe the evil actions committed by the accused on the small children. They said that the other younger children in the house had to go for counselling following the incident.
The first and third accused were sentenced to 25 years imprisonment on each count of murder, and the court ruled that the sentences will run concurrently resulting in the effective sentence of 25 years imprisonment each. The second accused was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment on each count of murder and the court ruled that the sentences would run concurrently resulting in an effective sentence of 15 years imprisonment. In sentencing the trio, the court deviated from the prescribed minimum sentence of life imprisonment saying that the case had an “unusual factual matrix in that the accused believed that the deceased were possessed by demons and inflicted the assaults in the process of driving out the demons from the deceased.” The court found this to constitute as substantial and compelling circumstances to deviate from life imprisonment. Further, the court found that the accused held varying levels of culpability in the commission of the offence. Hence the difference in the sentences received between them.
The NPA hopes that sentences of this nature will deter like-minded individuals.
