UPDATE: Emotions run high as murdered north boy (7) laid to rest
"When we asked him why he did it and what we did to deserve it, he stood there and said sorry," said Nkomo.
The seven-year-old Soshanguve boy allegedly kidnapped and murdered by his stepfather was laid to rest today.
Tshepang Nkomo’s family was still struggling to accept his tragic death, with his aunt Pertunia Nkomo saying she was still in shock from what happened to her niece.
“I still wish I might wake up and all of this was just a dream or someone tells us that the person they found was not him. I feel like everything will sink in after the funeral,” said Pertunia.
The accused Daniel Tutubala was expected to appear in the Soshanguve magistrate’s court on Friday.
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Nkomo said when the family asked the suspect why the boy was killed, “he just said he was sorry but failed to explain his actions”.
“We asked him why he did it and what we did to deserve this as a family, and he stood there and said ‘sorry’,” said Pertunia.
“On the 5th August, he (the accused) sent a message to his work place and said to his boss that his wife had been kidnapped and asked for a few days off. When they opened his locker at work they found my sister’s and her son’s clothes. The question we are asking ourselves is what were their clothes doing there, ” she said.
Pertunia also said that Tshepang’s mother had obtained a protection order against the suspect.
When the child went missing, Pertunia said Tutubala allegedly confessed to knowing the whereabouts of the child but “instructed the mother not to involve the police”.
“He called my sister and told her that he knew where the child was and he had spoken to a prophet but she needed to come alone and she should not involve the police because whatever they need to do, they needed to be strong about it.”
Pertunia said the family just wanted the killer “to be jailed for the rest of his life”.
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“Why does he deserve to live… South Africa should have the death penalty because prisons are full of people who do not deserve to live amongst society. Why should he be given a second chance when he did not give our child a second chance,” she said.
Pertunia said the family visited Tutubala’s mother but were insulted and chased away.
“She swore at us, telling us she did not care what happens to him and he could rot in jail for the rest of his life if he took a life of a child. But for some reason she was in court when he appeared the first time,” she said.
She said Tshepang’s mother was “angry, crippled by pain and resentful”.
While days were not the same, she sometimes blamed herself for what happened to his child, according to Nkomo.
The grieving mother could not speak about the fresh wound of losing her son.
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