Tshegofatso Pule’s family ready to heal, as trial wraps up

Slain mother-to-be Tshegofatso Pule’s uncle says while the trial of the alleged mastermind behind her brutal death proved a gruelling experience for him and his family, he believes they can now finally begin the healing process.

“It’s been a difficult journey, I’m not going to lie to you – emotional, nerve-racking at some points,” Tumisang Katake told The Citizen yesterday on the back of closing arguments in the case against Nthutuko Shoba, the father of Pule’s unborn baby and the man accused of ordering her murder.

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“But I think it was a journey the family had to go through for it to start preparing itself to heal,” he added.

“It wasn’t a pleasant experience but it did help us to get the bottom of what happened… I think after everything that’s been said in court, the picture is clear.”

Twenty-eight-year-old Pule was found dead in Durban Deep in June 2020. The aspirant beautician had been shot in the chest and hanged from a tree. She was eight months pregnant at the time.

Last year, Muzikayise Malephane, 32, confessed to the crime, but said he was acting on orders from Shoba, also 32, who had offered him R70,000 to kill Pule because he was married and didn’t want his wife to find out about their relationship.

Shoba was subsequently arrested and charged with murder and defeating the ends of justice himself. His trial eventually kicked off in the Johannesburg High Court last month and saw a total of 13 witnesses, including Malephane and Shoba, take the stand over the course of four weeks.

Shoba’s counsel, advocate Norman Makhubela, in his closing submissions tore into Malephane’s testimony and asked the court to disregard it in its entirety.

In court, Malephane testified he had picked Pule up from Shoba’s house under the pretence that he was an Uber driver and would be taking her home, but then instead shot and killed her. However, in an initial statement to police – in which he now admits he lied – Malephane placed Shoba at the scene of the crime and even alleged he was the one who killed Pule.

Makhubela labelled Malephane a “self-confessed liar”. He also honed in on Malephane’s own admissions that he was a career criminal, who was driven by a love of money.

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Makhubela also argued Shoba had led police to incriminating video footage of Malephane picking Pule up and said Malephane was hell-bent on taking Shoba at all costs as a result – pointing to threats he had made to have Shoba gang-raped in prison.

“Not only has Malephane displayed an obsession to deal with the accused because he believed that the accused betrayed him, he has also come across as intensely biased against the accused,” Makhubela argued.

But state advocate Faghre Mohamed highlighted what he described as “oddities” in Shoba’s testimony.

Among these were Shoba’s claims that while he usually arranged lifts to and from his house for Pule, on the night in question she had made these arrangements herself and his “failure to even enquire why the deceased was arranging her own transport” as well as his “failure to see the need to go to her abode to establish her whereabouts in the days after her departure, even though he was near her residence on more than one occasion”.

Judgment was reserved.