Her Standard 3 classmates sat confusedly amongst adult mourners, tears streaming down their uncomplicated faces, at White City’s House Number 1666. But heart-broken speaker after speaker, including the girl’s class teacher comforted the family, especially the girl’s granny, Emang Madikwe, mother, Neo Modibedi and father, Kefentse Spain Moilwa. According to a profile at the back of her funeral programme, Koketso Pearl Modibedi was born on August 18, 2008 in Gaborone to Kefentse Spain Moilwa and Neo Modibedi. She started Standard 1 in 2014 at Thebe Primary School and was in Standard 3 when she died.
Some of the mourners even suggested that the heavy downpours of the previous night were God weeping for the innocent blood that had been callously shed by a man who apparently must have been after the mother of ‘brilliant’ Nkoki that night, but on not finding her at home, turned his jealous rage on the girl, raping and strangling her to death. The girl’s lifeless body, wrapped in a sheet, was discovered by residents who were alerted to the scene by the wailing of the deceased’s younger brother who despite a tender age, must have witnessed as the man raped and strangled his sister. Apparently, after he had satisfied his lust for blood and gore, the assailant heaved the girl’s corpse and dumped it under a morula tree opposite Motovac, on the Old Lobatse Road.
