An 18-year-old was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment for murder in the Vosloorus Magistrate’s Court yesterday (March 6).
She stabbed her mother and left her bleeding on the dining room floor of their Vosloorus home before going drinking with her friends.
On January 30, Palesa Jessica Thinane pleaded guilty to and was found guilty of the murder of her mother, Maletsatsi Thinane, following the incident which happened at their home in Sotho Section on July 8, last year.
In her plea statement, Thinane said she was drinking at an establishment with several friends that night.
Later, her mother also arrived and the mood was “jovial”. When her mother said it was time to go home Thinane said she didn’t want to leave and her mother left without her.
She said when she did return home, around 4am, her mother started shouting at her and shoving her around because she had come home so late. Her mother, she said, was preventing her from leaving the house to go back to drink with her friends.
Thinane said her father was awoken by the commotion and also came into the dining room, by which stage she had fetched a knife from a kitchen drawer.
The altercation continued and in the process of trying to stop Thinane from stabbing her mother, the father was stabbed in the arm. He apparently then went outside and lost consciousness.
Thinane stabbed her mother once in the upper arm, severing an artery, which caused profuse bleeding.
Her mother collapsed, face down, on the dining room floor.
In a statement to a probation officer, Thinane said she can’t remember stabbing her mother as everything happened very quickly.
She did, however, leave the house after the attack and returned to drinking with her friends.
Paramedics were only called to the scene two hours later, and they declared the mother dead. She died from a loss of blood.
A post-sentencing report presented by a social worker indicated that Thinane said she was brought up with love, guidance and respect and that while her parents had strict rules and if these were broken punishment was always meted out fairly to all the children.
She also said that she was closer to her mother than to her father.
Magistrate Suren Harichand presided and Nkosazana Tyeku represented the state.
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