A young mother who told her sister she feared for her life is dead — along with her nine-month-old baby — in a case that has a grieving family calling for a formal investigation.
The bodies of Nasiphi Dutywa, 41, and her baby girl Ovayo were found in bed on April 9 by Nasiphi’s sister, Vuyiswa Dutywa. She had been called to the house by Nosiphi’s partner, a taxi driver who she lived with.
According to Vuyiswa, Nasiphi had told her she did not feel comfortable with him any longer but declined to explain her reasons, telling her sister: “The less you know the safer you are. I will tell you when I have moved out.”
The sisters planned for Nasiphi to move out of the Soweto home and move in with Vuyiswa on April 10.
Vuyiswa told the Sunday Times that the day before the scheduled move, while at work, she received three calls from her sister’s boyfriend, whose name is known to the Sunday Times. He told her Nasiphi had wronged him and done something very bad, but declined to elaborate. She told him she was busy with clients and would call him back at the end of the day.
About 40 minutes later he called her back, implied that he was going to call the police and asked Vuyiswa to come to the house with her mother, as they needed a family intervention in what she understood to have been a conflict situation.
The police have not communicated anything to us. But when we went to fetch the bodies, my mom was given an autopsy report that said the cause of death was poison ingestion, specifically halephirimi/alupirin
— Vuyiswa Dutywa, sister of Nasiphi Dutywa
Vuyiswa asked a work colleague skilled in mediation to accompany her, fetched her mother and arrived at the Soweto address the boyfriend had pin-dropped to her.
“When I got there he was sitting on the couch in the lounge with a man who he said was his handyman. I asked him where Nasiphi and the baby were, and he said they were still in bed — this was now at about 2pm. The house was very quiet and so I started calling for Nasiphi and walking through to find her,” Vuyiswa said. She was shocked to find the bodies of her sister and her baby on the bed.
“I saw both their mouths and hands and feet were blue. And I called to him, ‘what has happened? What did you do? Nasiphi, wake up!’ And then I touched her back, and it was ice cold.”
Only at that point, on the insistence of Vuyiswa, did the boyfriend call the police and an ambulance, she said.
According to the family, police who attended the scene did not wear gloves and immediately asked what Nasiphi had last eaten or had to drink. Yet, when shown a pot of cow heels on the stove and a discarded KFC container from food her boyfriend had bought for her the previous evening, they declined to take any of it for checking. No container of poison was found in the house.
“When we questioned them on their actions, they became quite aggressive and rude with us, telling us to stop trying to play mini-detectives,” Vuyiswa said.
The bodies were taken to the mortuary and released to the Dutywa family after almost two weeks.
“The police have not communicated anything to us. But when we went to fetch the bodies, my mom was given an autopsy report that said the cause of death was poison ingestion, specifically halephirimi/alupirin” — a highly toxic, illegal pesticide most commonly identified as Terbufos, often used to kill rats.
Postmortem results are still outstanding, and once the investigation is finalised, the matter will be referred to inquest court for decision. The family has been kept abreast with the investigation
— Col Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi, Gauteng police spokesperson
The day before Nasiphi and her baby were buried, their bodies, clothing and the bedding on which they were lying when they died were given to her mother.
“In our culture, it is custom for the mother of a deceased to wash the body, clothes and bedding as her way of saying goodbye. So my mom and her sister, who is a very experienced nurse, took care of that. And they saw that Nasiphi’s pyjamas were completely clean and the sheet they were on was fresh and ironed. There was nothing to show that they had been poisoned — no vomit or sweat, no soiling of her clothes,” Vuyiswa said.
Neo Mothale, a friend of Nasiphi, has since stepped in to assist the family and told the Sunday Times that she is helping them with their request for a formal, high-level investigation and will also help them file a case with the Independent Police Investigative Directorate and explore the possibility of a civil prosecution.
Mothale has documents showing that Nasiphi had lodged a maintenance claim against her sister’s boyfriend, and confirmation from a registered social worker that Nosphi had been an “in-house beneficiary” at a women’s shelter in Krugersdorp last October.
Gauteng police spokesperson Col Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi said an inquest docket was still open and under investigation.
“Postmortem results are still outstanding, and once the investigation is finalised, the matter will be referred to inquest court for decision. The family has been kept abreast with the investigation.”
Repeated attempts to reach the boyfriend for comment were unsuccessful as he did not respond to calls or text messages.
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