Limpopo woman sentenced to 25 years for husband’s murder over insurance payouts

A 47-year-old woman has been sentenced to 25 years imprisonment by the Limpopo High Court on Tuesday for orchestrating her husband’s death for several insurance policy payments.

Kedibone Lonia Nyathi pleaded guilty to killing her husband, Sandy Nyathi, on 3 December 2022 in Enable village in Mopani, Limpopo.

Hired killers testified against wife

The wife was previously charged together with three young men that she hired to kill her husband. However,after they were sentenced, 19-year-old Remember Surprise Malepe and 18-year-old Ethen Raganya and Poopo Ventry Mabela entered into a plea and sentence agreement with the state to testify against Nyathi.

Malepe was sentenced to 10 years in prison, and Raganya and Mabela were sentenced to eight years each.

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National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) regional spokesperson Mashudu Malabi-Dzhangi said Nyathi initially indicated that she would plead not guilty, but she changed her tone and negotiated a plea and sentence agreement.

“Her plea and sentence agreement revealed that she contracted the former co-accused to kill her husband for a fee of R15 000. She further asked her accomplices to stage a hijacking by barricading the road where she will pass together with the deceased,” Malabi-Dzhangi said.

Husband stabbed, co-accused pretended to attack wife

Nyathi was driving her car, pretending that she was accompanying her husband to work. Meanwhile, she was informing her accomplices to prepare themselves to kill Sandy.

Before reaching the workplace, Nyathi stopped the car and asked her husband to remove objects that were thrown into the road.

“The deceased alighted from the vehicle, and that’s when the deceased was stabbed to death by the former accused persons, and one of the former co-accused pretended to attack her (Nyathi),” Malabi-Dzhangi said.

During aggravation of the sentence, senior state advocate Nkhetheni Munyai told the court how the offence was committed out of greed. The investigations revealed that Nyathi had several insurance policy payments that she was entitled to in the event of her husband’s death.

Wife declared unfit to posses firearm

The acting judge, Ngobeni, found that the plea and sentence agreement was in the interests of justice and accordingly sentenced Nyathi to 25 years of direct imprisonment on Tuesday.

She was also declared unfit to possess a firearm.

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The NPA welcomed the sentence, and the Director of Public Prosecutions, advocate Ivy Thenga, commended Munyai and the investigation officer, Detective Sergeant Sello Rony Maepa of Maake Police Station, for building a case which left Nyathi with no option but to plead guilty.