He claims her lover paid him R70k to kill her
Johannesburg – The man accused of murdering 8-month pregnant Tshegofatso Pule and hanging her on a tree pleaded guilty to her murder on Friday.
Muzikayise Malephane appeared in the South Gauteng High Court, where he entered into a plea and sentence agreement with the State.
He claimed Pule’s lover had first offered him R7 000 to kill Pule as he did not want his wife to know he had impregnated her. However, Malephane said he declined and the man increased the amount to R20 000, but he still rejected it as he felt it was too little.
It was only after the man upped the offer to R70 000 that he agreed kill Pule. Malephane, from Zondi, Soweto, stabbed and hanged her. He was arrested while travelling from Mpumalanga in July after a manhunt had been launched.
When Malephane made his first appearance in the Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court, he could not stop crying as he sat in the dock. A few days later, during a bail application, he refused the services of a Legal Aid lawyer and the matter was postponed to allow him to secure private representation.
Malephane later abandoned his bail application and remained behind bars until the matter went to trial.
Pule, 28, had last been reportedly seen alive while getting into a metered taxi which her boyfriend had summoned for her two weeks earlier. Her body, riddled with stab wounds, was later found hanging from a tree in Durban Deep, Roodepoort.
IOL
