Man pleads guilty as revenge filicides escalate
Lebogang Mosikare | Monday August 14, 2023 06:00
Filicide is the purposeful killing of one or more children by a parent, step-parent, or other parental figure. Revenge filicide is a poorly understood, rare form of filicide in which a parent murders their child to cause emotional harm to the child's other parent.
Bame was the daughter of Makhura’s girlfriend Chenesani Tebelelo. At the time the two offences were committed, Chenesani and Makhura’s love relationship was on the rocks. According to the summary of facts, Makhura and Chenesani were in a love relationship and cohabited together at Setambule ward in Shashemooke together with the latter’s children and one of them was Bame.
“It happened that on September 22, 2019 at around 10 pm, the accused person went to Chenesani’s homestead where he found the deceased at home. The accused person then enquired from the deceased about the whereabouts of her mother but in her response, the deceased told him that she did not know. On the same day, Chenesani paid her neighbour one Mma Tee a visit in the evening. Later during that night, the accused person showed up at the said homestead where immediately upon arrival he called Chenesani to have a chat with her but she declined. The accused person then left and proceeded back to Chenesani’s home whereupon arrival, he got inside the house in which the deceased was sleeping with her two siblings,” as per the facts.
The facts continued: “The accused took the deceased with him and proceeded to the other side of the bush. When they got there, the accused raped the deceased. After that, the accused got scared and strangled the deceased. After learning that the deceased had died, the accused took her body and hid it because he was afraid and thereafter took to his heels. A search party was later dispatched and found the deceased in a mud hut belonging to one Kebalepile Tshamekang. Dr Shathani Muguma opined that the cause of death was due to neck compression as a result of ligature strangulation. Muguma also observed that the deceased was bleeding from her private parts. Detective Inspector Tshetlho warned and cautioned the accused of rape and murder.”
The case was scheduled for extenuation and mitigation yesterday but Makhura’s attorney Lesego Phoi told Justice Moroka that he was unable to meet with his client on Wednesday in prison because prison officials did not allow the meeting because he had forgotten his national identity card (Omang). After the case was adjourned to 16 August for extenuation and mitigation, Chenesani told Mmegi that Makhura should be hanged for brutally murdering her innocent daughter.
“I wish that Keolopile should be hanged until he dies for murdering my daughter,” a tearful Chenesani said. The deceased’s maternal aunt, Laolani Mpuisang, also wants Makhura to receive the ultimate sentence of death. Mpuisang said: “The death of Bame has affected us a lot. If things were going according to how we wish, Makhura should be hanged by the neck until he dies.”
Makhura’s case joins other escalating cases of spousal revenge filicide that has been rocking the country of late. One Motlatsi Khoto is on death row for the murder of Metlha Sibanda. Metlha was the daughter of Khoto’s estranged girlfriend, Unami Sibanda.
This week, a local publication, The Midweek Sun, carried an article about one Tshepiso Mooketsana who allegedly murdered his five-year-old son Lesego Lesole as a way of getting back at his baby mama, Gorata Wendy Lesole, who had fallen out of love with Mooketsana. Earlier year, there was an incident in which a doctor allegedly killed his two children and committed suicide in Tsholofelo East in Gaborone. These are just some of the local documented cases of men killing their children or step children as an act of revenge or a form of punishment.