Nomia Rosemary Ndlovu: The story behind the family-killing cop

NONE TOO CLOSE TO BE KILLED

Maria Sophie Mushwana refused to believe that Rosemary Ndlovu, her special policewoman daughter, was a cold-hearted killer. She chose to testify in her daughter’s defence on Thursday September 16 2021, where Rosemary was accused of killing six family members and conspiring to kill her own mother.

“I know nothing about the things that Rosemary is accused of,” Mushwana insisted when I visited her home. “When it comes to Brilliant [Rosemary’s nephew and last victim, found dead in January 2018 a few kilometres from Mushwana’s home], there is no way that Rosemary would have come to Bushbuckridge and not come here. Look, I don’t want to talk about this. It makes my heart sore, so please stop asking me these questions.”

A LOVER WORTH MORE DEAD THAT ALIVE

In October 2015, Rosemary’s lover Maurice Mabasa was found dead in Olifantsfontein with about 80 stab wounds.

Less than 24 hours after the funeral, Maurice’s brother Justice’s phone began ringing nonstop. The calls came from insurance companies wanting to confirm that Rosemary was Maurice’s wife.

At first, Justice confirmed their relationship, but he grew irritated when he realised different service providers were all calling to confirm the same thing.

I could not understand. We had just buried Maurice, so why were they calling me about money matters? That is when I started having suspicions

“I could not understand. We had just buried Maurice, so why were they calling me about money matters? That is when I started having suspicions,” Justice told me.

Much to Rosemary’s irritation, Justice’s lack of co-operation with the insurance policies caused delays in her payments. She and Justice began to clash.

“I asked her why I kept getting calls because she had only told me that I was going to get calls from SAPS [her employer] confirming that she was on leave [because of the death]. By this time, however, she had already left Malamulele. She was not even at our family home at that time.”

Conflict again erupted when it emerged that only Maurice’s eldest daughter and Rosemary were listed as the beneficiaries of his death benefits at the US embassy where Maurice had worked as a chauffeur.

Justice believed Maurice had hoped that the money would be shared with the rest of his family, but Rosemary was dead set against the idea.

From the life and funeral insurance policies alone, she pocketed R416,357.84 in payouts. She also reportedly received a lump sum of about R100,000 from the US embassy.

Every month, the embassy also paid out money from a trust intended for Maurice and Rosemary’s young daughter, Makhanani. But Makhakani died in 2017, before her third birthday. Like Rosemary’s first child, Jaunty, Makhanani died under mysterious circumstances.

A short while after Maurice’s death, said Justice, Rosemary had complained to her mother-in-law that Makhanani was crying nonstop.  Maurice’s elderly mother encouraged Rosemary to bring Makhanani to her in Malamulele for a while.

The child then stayed in Malamulele and was a source of comfort for the elderly woman, who was still grieving the loss of her son. But one day, Rosemary showed up out of the blue and said she was taking her daughter back.

Weeks later, the little one was dead.

Makhanani’s toxicology reports were inconclusive, but Justice believed that just like her elder brother, Jaunty, she had been poisoned by her mother, Rosemary. He believed Makhanani may have died so that Rosemary would be the sole beneficiary of the US embassy trust fund. He told me that he still blamed himself for Makhanani’s death.

“I was the one who had suggested that the trust fund be opened. I feel I shouldn’t have suggested the trust. I should have told Rosemary to take everything because maybe the child’s life would have been saved. Maybe she would not have died,” he said.

Justice and his family only learnt of Makhanani’s passing after her funeral. Accepting that they would never uncover the truth regarding the little girl’s death, her paternal family at least found some solace in knowing that Rosemary is likely to remain behind bars for the rest of her life.

“I was always praying. I remember one time I went to Maurice’s grave. I sat there for about four or five hours, telling him to fight for himself,” recalls Justice. But the family are still haunted by painful, unanswered questions.

“Where did she kill my brother?” Justice wants to know.

According to their cultural practices, the family believe it’s important to know exactly where Maurice drew his last breath so that rituals can be performed to ensure his spirit is untroubled.

“My suspicion is that he was killed in the house where he lived with Rosemary. I don’t see anywhere else where it could have happened,” said Justice.

“I vividly remember after Maurice’s death when I went to the house with Rosemary, the house was extremely clean. The tiles were clean. It smelled fresh, like bleach. There was a new bucket. She took that brand-new bucket, poured water in it, and when we went to the place where his body was found, she cleaned the blood that was found there, saying ants are not meant to eat the blood of a person,” said Justice.

Why didn’t she keep the killing in her family? Why did she come to mine?

—  Justice Mabasa

Justice has still not found peace. He remains distraught and angry. “Why didn’t she keep the killing in her family? Why did she come to mine?”

But Rosemary’s infiltration of Maurice’s family went far deeper than they imagined. Only in 2022, a year after Rosemary’s conviction, did Justice and his family uncover a secret that would haunt them forever.

Over the years, Rosemary had formed a tight bond with Maurice and Justice’s younger sister, Luceth. Like Justice, Luceth attended many of the court proceedings, sitting in the gallery as Rosemary’s heinous crimes were revealed one by one.

In October 2022, as the family prepared to welcome cameras into their home for a documentary that was being made about Rosemary, Luceth revealed something she had never shared before.

“I can’t believe that Rosemary did this to us as a family, especially to me. I’ve done so much for her,” Luceth told the cameras.

“What do you mean? What have you done for her?” the documentary producer asked Luceth.

“When Rosemary and my brother wanted to have a child, I felt sorry for her. I wanted to help her,” said Luceth. “I gave her my eggs in order for her to fall pregnant.”

Until then, the family had been unaware that Makhanani had technically been a child of incest — a child who shared the DNA of brother and sister Maurice and Luceth.

'SOMETHING MISCHIEVOUS

At the time of his death, Hand Khoza [Ndlovu’s former husband — she was not convicted of a crime in connection with his death] held life insurance policies issued by Old Mutual and qualified for death benefits from his place of work. The family had no idea of the value of the policies and benefits, but they were certain that Rosemary had been listed as a beneficiary, along with the couple’s son, Jaunty, as well as Khoza’s mother and his child from a previous relationship.

“My mother never got a cent from that money. We tried to also get the money paid out for his elder daughter from that first marriage, but it was not successful,” said [Khoza’s brother] Rogers. “It seemed there was something mischievous happening because even all the payouts from his work went solely to her.” 

Months after his brother’s death, Rogers received a call from an excited Rosemary, saying she had won a car in a competition. There were varying stories about how she had won the car. Some said she had entered a competition at Emperors Palace casino, and others said she had won it in a promotion for mageu, the nonalcoholic wheat drink.

Emperors Palace, which at the time was known as Caesars Palace, denied that Rosemary Ndlovu had been one of their car winners in that period. Rogers believed, however, that she could have bought the car with the money from Hand’s policies. While little is known about those payouts, a friend of Rosemary’s, who was close to her around the time of her son Jaunty’s passing, explained how some of the money meant for Jaunty was placed in a trust.

“The conditions of the trust stated that Jaunty would have access to the funds at the age of 18,” Said the friend, “Anna”,  who asked that her real name not be published. But Jaunty did not live to see his 18th birthday. He died when he was just 13 years old. 

Three guesses who benefited? After his father died, Jaunty lived with Rosemary’s mother in Bushbuckridge while Rosemary still worked in Johannesburg. Four years after Hand’s death, she arrived at the Khoza homestead and informed Rogers that Jaunty would visit her in Johannesburg during the winter school holidays. Her son had not yet been to her home in Gauteng.

“She also told me that she had plans of enrolling him in a Model C school in Johannesburg and said she would need me to sign off on some enrolment forms. I agreed and encouraged her to do it,” said Rogers. Jaunty left for Johannesburg over the holidays, but the Khoza household never saw him alive again. The boy’s coffin arrived in the back of the family’s van a day before his burial.

Rogers said the Khoza family was told that, shortly after his arrival in Johannesburg, Jaunty had fallen severely ill and spent several days at the Arwyp Medical Centre in Kempton Park, where he was treated for suspected poisoning. Jaunty was eventually discharged but, a day later, he died at his mother’s house. Rosemary claimed that her son’s death was caused by complications that arose from the poisoning for which he had been treated. 

“When Jaunty died, Rosemary became the beneficiary of the trust fund,” said Anna, who added that, at the time, the possibility of Rosemary being behind Jaunty’s death was far from her mind. Rogers told me that he was shocked when, in March 2018, he heard of his former sister-in-law’s arrest and the atrocities of which she had been accused.

We wanted to see and confirm that this really was the person whom we had lived with in the same yard for years

—  Rogers Khoza

A relative of the Khozas in Thembisa attended the first of her court proceedings where Rosemary applied unsuccessfully for bail. “We wanted to see and confirm that this really was the person whom we had lived with in the same yard for years,” said Rogers.

Two years later, when Rosemary’s trial got under way, the Khoza family followed her court case through live-streams and TV broadcasts. “It was scary seeing her there ... We thought to ourselves that perhaps, had she remained here, that would have been us — wiped out one by one. We have unanswered questions about her. Did she come in contact with people who influenced her badly? Did she become desperate for money? A get-rich-quick scheme? What drove her to do this?” 

Rogers said that after the deaths of his brother and nephew, he had tried to keep in touch with Rosemary — but she was always distant and “too busy”. Several years after Hand’s passing, Rosemary erected a tombstone on his grave. She religiously visited the gravesite every December, around the date of his passing. But, Rogers said, he went to the graveyard a few years ago and was shocked to find that the tombstone was gone. “I inquired about this with Rosemary, and she said that she had taken it to get it fixed as it had fallen off.” But, years later, the grave still lay defaced without its tombstone. This, the Khozas believed, could have been a bad omen, showing what lay in store for Rosemary.

* These are edited extracts from ‘Killer Cop: The Rosemary Ndlovu Story’, by Naledi Shange, published by MF Books and in bookstores this week.

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

As a journalist, I have written hundreds of news articles and covered scores of court cases but there was something about Nomia Rosemary Ndlovu, convicted in 2021 of six murders, that pushed me to go beyond what was revealed in the courtroom.

Ndlovu gained widespread notoriety during her trial as a cop-turned-serial killer who preyed on those closest to her — her own family members and her live-in partner — in a callous scheme to claim their life insurance payouts.  

The Thembisa-based police officer diligently paid monthly premiums during the waiting periods stipulated by the life policies, to ensure the policies would be valid and would pay out — just like you might fatten up a calf or other animal before slaughtering it. 

My first inkling that there was more to Ndlovu’s story than the courtroom evidence  came when I received a Facebook message during her trial. It was from a relative of hers who detailed how her life had always been full of drama — right from inception.  She was born to a lesbian couple in a small Tzaneen village. Her mother had left that union, but the scorned lover she left behind was a traditional healer. This woman, according to the relative, issued a curse that set Rosemary and her family on the path to doom.

This clue into Ndlovu’s past led me deep into the maze of relationships that she exploited in her insatiable greed. The lives of her “nearest and dearest”, to her, were worth only what the insurance company would pay out when they were brought to a premature end.   Her cold-blooded career of crime has spawned myriad accounts, including the TimesLIVE documentary Catching Rosemary, but I have sought in my book to delve deeper into who the victims were.  The book is a tribute to each of them.

• Watch the documentary ‘Finding Rosemary’ on TimesLIVE.