‘Triple murder’: Inadmissibility of evidence application dismissed
Lebogang Mosikare | Tuesday October 11, 2022 06:00
According to the charge sheet, Gasebonno Boitumelo Makgasane, 36, murdered Realotswe Kaisara, Segametsi Moleele, and Maitumelo Makwate between February 2 and 4 in 2016 in Mmadiphala Ranch in Moletemane village.
The trio was allegedly murdered when they went to look for jobs at Gosiame Farm, also known as Mmadiphala Ranch, but never returned nor answered their phones or returned calls from their relatives.
The relatives became worried after days went by without hearing from the deceased and they ended up engaging the police. Then, when the trial was still continuing before Justice Bashi Moesi, Makgasane’s attorney Reneetswe Rabotsho made an interlocutory application praying with the court to rule that the evidence of the third prosecution witness, Dorcus Pheko, was inadmissible.
Pheko had told the court that she knew the accused very well because he grew up before her eyes in Moletemane. “On February 10, 2016, Kgosi Dialwa Motsamai asked me to accompany the police at Mmadiphala farm as their independent witness... The accused told the police in my presence that he took a hammer and hit Kaisara on the head and thereafter took an axe and hit him on the back of the head before loading him into a wheelbarrow to dump him in the bush. He unearthed the axe that he used to hit Kaisara with ... and showed it to the police.
The accused later led us to the Limpopo River whereupon he told us that he threw Maitumelo into the river. He also showed us a crocodile egg nest nearby. Across the river, I could also see many crocodiles.
He also led us to the place where he said he had tied Segametsi to a tree and thereafter killed her,” said Pheko. Pheko’s evidence led to a legal stalemate when Rabosotho was still cross-examining her. Rabosotho made an application for Pheko’s evidence to be rendered inadmissible because the police enlisted the help of a very powerful figure in the person of Kgosi Motsamai to assist them to look for an independent witness to accompany them at Mmadiphala.
This, Rabosotho reasoned, had an impact on how the police treated the matter in relation to the independent witness which impact will be detrimental to the accused because the police will not want to be seen as having disappointed the chief in alleged murder cases.
Rabosotho added that the accused was taken to the crime scene in handcuffs and leg irons and under heavy police escort and was thus not free to deny what he told the police in the presence of the independent witness. When dismissing the application, Moesi said that it had no merit adding that Pheko should continue her evidence on October 27.
“The reasons for dismissing this application shall be incorporated in the final judgment,” said Moesi.
Previously, Eva Goilwang, who is Moleele’s grandmother, told the court that to this day she had not seen her granddaughter since her disappearance but suspected that she was thrown into the crocodile-infested Limpopo River.
When asked by defence attorney Rabosotho, Goilwang said that she had not heard from Makwate either save to say that she saw Makwate’s footsteps ending at the banks of the Limpopo River.
Another witness, Dikeledi Moleele testified that Segametsi was her daughter. She went on: “...My younger sister Lesego later told me that she found Segametsi dead at the farm tied to a tree trunk...The police later came to my place holding Segametsi’s Nokia cellphone. During the burial, we did not see Segametsi’s remains as it is customary because her corpse was badly decomposed,” said Dikeledi, adding that she told Segametsi’s two children that Makgasane had killed Segametsi. Under cross-examination from Rabosotho, Dikeledi denied that Segametsi was in a romantic relationship with Makgasane because if it was so, she would have known about it. Goabaone Motlhagodi represents the state in the matter.