Xolani Jerome Mtolo (38) was recently handed a 12-year prison sentence in the Port Shepstone Regional Court for the murder of Koti Khawula (64) on October 15, 2015.
The court found that Mtolo had killed Ms Khawula intentionally.
“The fact that he went to her armed, incensed because of his belief that she had bewitched him and the manner in which he stabbed her to death are consistent with a premeditated killing,” said Port Shepstone Regional Magistrate, Johann Bester.
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Ms Khawula was a traditional healer, a so-called sangoma, living in Ward 26 of the Qinabout location.
Mtolo lived in the Mpumulanga Township near Hammarsdale and, during a visit to his uncle in Quinabout in 2010, he consulted Ms Khawula for help.
It seemed he was wrestling with a cultural condition known as ‘mutwasa’, where a spirit calls on a person to train as a sangoma.
Ms Khawula told Mtolo in public, while in church, that his problems stemmed from the fact that he bore his maternal grandmother’s surname, and that this was a stumbling block to his spiritual calling.
Mtolo blamed Ms Khawula for his condition, and the court heard that, in his dreams, ‘voices’ had told him his problems would stop when Ms Khawula was dead.
In October 2015 he returned to Quinabout, intending to consult Ms Khawula again.
On the morning of October 15, Ms Khawula’s neighbour, Tholozile Mthembu, spoke to her in the field next to her homestead. Ms Khawula had her 20-month-old grandchild with her.
They parted ways.
Later, Ms Mthembu heard Ms Khuwula shouting for help. She shouted back, asking what was wrong.
When there was no response, Ms Mthembu ran to Ms Khawula’s house to investigate.
There she saw Mtolo bent over Ms Khawula’s lifeless body.
The toddler was in the same room, unharmed.
When Mtolo turned and approached her, a terrified Ms Mthembu fled and screamed to alert a neighbour.
Ms Khawula had suffered 19 stab wounds to the chest and neck.
“The fact that Mtolo fled the moment he heard the police were to be summoned, that he rushed to his uncle’s homestead, packed his bag and caught a taxi home to Hammarsdale were acts of flight and indicated knowledge of having done wrong,” said Magistrate Bester in closing.
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