Mother gets 10 years for killing daughters in botched murder-suicide

Lehlogonolo Mary Bokaba was sentenced by the Pretoria High Court to 10 years imprisonment for the murder of her two daughters.

The 29-year-old mother hanged her two-month-old infant and eight-year-old girl in May 2022 after becoming severely depressed, as she would later testify in court.

Bokaba was in a relationship with the father of the infant but had decided to leave him as he was a serial cheater and did not contribute to the children’s upbring.

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She had been living in her mother-in-law’s backroom and on the day of the incident, noticed something was amiss after Bokaba did not come into the house to prepare food.

The mother-in-law discovered the lifeless children and their distraught mother, whose attempt to hang herself was unsuccessful.

Saved from minimum sentence

“She told the court in her plea statement that she felt overwhelmed with the state of her relationship with her husband and decided to kill herself and her children by hanging them with a cord to save them from the consequence of growing up without a mother,” said Gauteng NPA spokesperson Lumka Mahanjana.

“When handing down the sentence Judge Mashudu Munzhelele found that there were substantial and compelling circumstances to deviate from the prescribed minimum sentence of 15 years.”

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Her pleading guilty, being a first-time offender and the emotional distress suffered before committing the crime were all factors that counted in her favour.

She was found guilty on two counts of murder, with the separate 10-year sentences running concurrently.

In a plea to the court, Bokaba asked that information be made available to help women overcome personal strife.

Pastor given life sentence for raping stepdaughter

Meanwhile, a 44-year-old man was sentenced to life imprisonment for one count of rape and one count of attempted rape by the Galeshewe Regional Court.

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He becomes the fourth man in his forties to receive a similar sentence for a similar crime in the space of a week.

The three other men were sentenced in separate cases in Sasolburg, eMalehleni and KwaMashu.