In June 2024, police manning a roadblock near La Lucia, Durban, were horrified to discover the body of a woman, wrapped in plastic, covered with bags and cardboard in the back of a bakkie.
The driver attempted to run away but was caught hiding in a nearby office park.
On Monday, that driver — Manqoba Mhlongo — was sentenced to life imprisonment for the brutal murder of his girlfriend Nompumelelo Gumede.
“I cannot imagine a case more serious or more vile,” Durban regional court magistrate Garth Davis said as he handed down sentence.
He said the postmortem report indicated that Gumede had been beaten to death. She had more than 1l of blood in her stomach and extensive bruising.
The crime was committed in a bushy area close to La Lucia Mall, an area where Gumede worked as a domestic worker.
Mhlongo and an accomplice, Nolisa Gadiso, wanted to dispose of her body, but their plan was thwarted when they drove into the roadblock.
I cannot imagine a case more serious or more vile.
— Magistrate Garth Davis
Mhlongo and Gumede had been in a relationship for 18 months. The court heard evidence that he believed she was cheating on him.
Mhlongo denied the charges against him, claiming that she told him she had been robbed and he was taking her to hospital for treatment.
However, the post mortem report indicated that she had been dead for at least two hours when police stumbled across her body. His defence was rejected by Davis, who convicted him of premeditated murder and defeating the ends of justice by attempting to dispose of the body.
Gadiso was convicted of being an accessory after the fact to murder.
In considering sentence, Davis said the state had handed in victim impact statements from Gumede’s sister and her son, who both told of how their lives had changed in the most profoundly negative way.
Her son had had to drop out of school because he now lives in abject poverty.
Davis said the attempt to dispose of her body was “inhumane”.
“The reality is, but for their being stopped at the roadblock, it is perhaps unlikely that her body would ever have been found.”
He said gender-based violence had killed more women and children in South Africa than any pandemic and the “callous brutality” of the crime was indicative of Mhlongo’s lack of humanity, consistent with patriarchal misogyny.
Davis sentenced Mhlongo to life imprisonment and a further eight years for obstructing the course of justice, which will run concurrently.
Regarding Gadiso, he said while he was not a murderer, “his moral blameworthiness is elevated” because he chose to assist Mhlongo.
Davis sentenced him to five years under correctional supervision legislation, which allows for his release, under house arrest, after 10 months.
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