MBOMBELA – “Ngiyabonga Jehova. Thank you, God. Die Here is goed!”
These exclamations came from a gallery of tear-stained faces after the murderer, Edgar Mabunda was sentenced on Wednesday. He was found guilty of killing his stepdaughter (8), and sentenced to life imprisonment in the local Circuit High Court.
Mabunda is a father of four, married to a Bushbuckridge woman and the former boyfriend of Ms Constance Mathebula. On July 29, 2013, he and Mathebula were at odds because she didn’t want him to subject their newborn daughter to traditional rituals.
According to her testimony, he got back at her by abducting her daughter after school, taking her into the forest and killing her. When he was done, he phoned Mathebula and told her what he had done.
A police investigation led to the discovery of Miranda Mathebula’s body in Newforest, Thulamahashe. She was half naked and her socks, which he had used to strangle her, were still tied around her neck. According to medical evidence, she was sexually penetrated after her death.
Regardless of his plea of innocence, judge Mr Peter Mabuse found him guilty. He asked Mabunda to put himself in the victim’s shoes.
“Everyone wants to know why you killed such a small child. Can you think what went through her head when you took her into the forest? How scared she was? You’ve stripped the little girl of her dignity. She would never have been able to defend herself against or outrun you,” Mabuse said.
Heartbreaking sobs from the gallery drew Mabuse’s attention. “Do you know why these people are crying?” he asked Mabunda. “No sentence can bring back the life of this little girl.”
Ms Lydia Maroane, the ANC Women’s League’s provincial secretary, said the organisation which supported Mathebula throughout the trial, was satisfied with the outcome of the case. “We thank our government for the justice system that works. He surely deserves to be in jail,” Maroane said.
