Clive Bowers’ suspected killers – first appearance

The suspects – Messrs Lewis Mathe (35), Osvaldo Manyike (33) and Thomas Mashaba (26) – briefly appeared in the White River Magistrate’s Court yesterday morning where the case was postponed to February 23 for a formal bail application.

February 17, 2015

3 minutes read

MBOMBELA – Three men believed to have murdered 60-year-old Mr Clive Anthony Bowers at Bundu Estate, were arrested on Friday morning, exactly a month after the incident. A fourth suspect who was found in possession of an unlicenced firearm and is believed to have been their accomplice in other armed attacks, had also been apprehended.

The suspects – Messrs Lewis Mathe (35), Osvaldo Manyike (33) and Thomas Mashaba (26) – briefly appeared in the White River Magistrate’s Court yesterday morning where the case was postponed to February 23 for a formal bail application. They were remanded in custody. The media was requested not to photograph them as an identification parade had been scheduled to take place later this week. A fourth suspect, Mr Petro Chambale, is believed to have been their accomplice in other armed attacks.

The firearm found in his possession is suspected to have been robbed during one of the other armed attacks they had allegedly executed.

He is being charged with the possession of an unlicensed firearm and appeared in the Nelspruit’s Magistrate’s Court. The outcome of his appearance wasn’t available at the time of going to print.

Mathe, Manyike and Mashaba had allegedly confessed to police that they were the ones responsible for Bowers’ death. They were being linked to various other crimes and had been referred to as the panga gang in the media as this was their main weapon of choice.

On January 13 at approximately 23:30, Bowers had been asleep with his life partner, Ms Renate Wagner, when they were awoken by a noise in the house.

The couple was still trying to establish where it came from when they suddenly saw a man in the house.

They locked themselves in the bedroom and called for help. The suspects then kicked the door open and Bowers sprayed them with pepper spray. He was shot twice and died on the scene. Wagner fell on top of him, pretending to be dead too.

The suspects allegedly confessed to police that they had shot him and fled the scene with a television set and cellphones belonging to the couple. Immediately after the incident had taken place, the police and private security guards joined hands to search for the assailants, but in vain. However, they managed to recover the television set and firearm which the suspects supposedly confessed had been used in Bowers’ murder. The suspects were also believed to have been responsible for the attack on a family of five at the Lowveld National Botanical Garden last year. The family was casually walking in the garden when they were suddenly attacked by a group of men armed with pangas and robbed of their personal belongings.

This gang had been accused of more than 30 serious crimes which included house robberies, house break-ins, armed robberies and murder, wherein one of them had already been linked to the crimes through fingerprint recognition by the Local Criminal Record Centre. “These acts established fear within the community. We believe residents will now heave a sigh of relief. However, we will not be fooled and think the suspects were responsible for all crimes in the Nelspruit cluster, we still have other criminal elements within the community. I make a humble call to the community to continue working with the police in their quest to root out crime,” said the newly appointed provincial commissioner, Lt Gen Mark Magadlela. Police had since recovered a 9 millimetre pistol and three live rounds of ammunition from them. It also emerged that the suspects had been posing as hawkers in the streets of Mbombela by day and acted like hooligans during the night.

Magadlela commended the joint operation, which comprised crime intelligence and gathering, Mbombela detectives, the provincial tracking team and the Pienaar tactical response team, for a sterling job.