Hired gunman Muzikayise Malephane appeared calm and comfortable in court this week as he revealed in chilling detail new information on how he had killed heavily pregnant Tshegofatso Pule.
His testimony in the high court in Johannesburg was difficult for her family to hear, but it gave them the closure they had been seeking, they said. The details of Pule's last moments had not been included in his confession statement.
Malephane is serving a 20-year sentence after entering a plea bargain with the state. He was testifying in the trial of the father of Pule's unborn daughter, Ntuthuko Shoba, who is alleged to have hired Malephane to kill Pule. Shoba has pleaded not guilty.
Pule’s uncle, Tumisang Katake, told the Sunday Times that this week's testimony had helped the family piece together the details of 28-year-old Pule's death.
“When Mr Malephane admitted to the killings, he did not give out the ... details into how the murder was committed and where,” he said, referring to Malephane’s plea agreement statement in which he agreed to turn state witness against Shoba.
Even though those details were not easy to receive, all those questions which have been haunting us for almost two years have been answered
— Family member Tumisang Katake
“We knew that it was in Noordgesig but the area is so big ... and now we know. We needed to know at which spot so we could conduct proper traditional ceremonies that are done when a person dies. Even though those details were not easy to receive, all those questions which have been haunting us for almost two years have been answered.”
But Katake said now they were left with the memory of Pule’s horrific last moments. “Tshegofatso ... was tiny and petite in structure. Can you imagine now how fragile she was as she was pregnant?”
In his testimony, Malephane described his life of crime, saying this could have been why Shoba entrusted him with the murder.
He confessed to being a gangster who had been involved in a string of serious crimes that he had never been convicted of.
“It was because of the lifestyle that I was living before [that Shoba feared me]. We were stealing cars, doing house-breakings, taking cars apart. That’s it. I could say that I was living a gangster life,” said Malephane, who in his earlier testimony described himself as being in the business of “buying and reselling” cars.
Pule’s June 2020 death shocked the country when videos showing her bloody and battered body circulated on social media. She was eight months' pregnant at the time. Her body was discovered hanging from a blue gum tree in a patch of veld in Durban Deep, Roodepoort. She was barefoot, wearing a bloodstained sleeveless top and turquoise leggings. She had been shot in the chest and twine had been tightened around her neck and looped over a branch, her body hoisted aloft. Her murder sparked renewed protests against violence against women in SA.
Malephane appeared at ease when he described killing Pule as a favour. He said Shoba had promised him R70,000 for the murder, which the pair had allegedly wanted to stage to look like a suicide.
As Malephane admitted to the court that he had embarked on negotiations with Shoba before agreeing on a price, his brazen response to the question of how he reached the price highlighted the circles he moved in.
He said when he agreed to help Shoba find a person to kill Pule, he thought of going to the hostels to speak to people he knew, but soon realised he could keep the cash for himself if he cut out the middleman.
“I had said that R7,000 was too little for killing a person. I did not accept R20,000 either. I had gone to my people and they all said R20,000 was too little. I called him and we agreed on R70,000,” said Malephane.
He killed Pule before receiving payment but said Shoba would have given him the money because he “would have blackmailed him” or intimidated him into paying.
Malephane, however, was arrested before receiving payment.
The pistol he used to shoot Pule was an illegal firearm, which, according to Malephane, had been purchased at Jabulani Hostel in Soweto. He told the court he could not lead police to his gun supplier even if he wanted to.
Police have never recovered the firearm. Malephane claimed to have thrown it into a dam in Bronkhorstspruit, east of Pretoria.
Malephane said Shoba had wanted Pule dead after she refused to have an abortion. He said Shoba, a JSE analyst, feared his wife would leave him, taking with her the millions she had received from a trust fund.
Shoba has denied any involvement, alleging that his only connection to Malephane was that he was a cigarette supplier during hard lockdown when the sale of cigarettes was banned.
He has admitted that Pule was his on-and-off-again lover.
Malephane said he picked up Pule from Shoba’s Florida residence under the guise of being an Uber driver, taking her back home to Meadowlands.
He detoured with her to Noordgesig, where he claimed he needed to fetch something before stopping near a juvenile facility. He pulled her out of the car, shot her dead and put her body back in the vehicle. He then drove around before hanging the body in a tree in Durban Deep.
The trial is set to continue tomorrow (Monday).
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