Women killers on the rise in South Africa

Women are generally regarded as the softer gender and have a supposedly higher sense of morality, making them more able to distinguish between right and wrong.

Yet, in South Africa, more and more women are being convicted for killing their partners.

This week, a woman was granted bail after stabbing her partner in the chest on Valentine’s Day. National Prosecuting Authority North Gauteng spokesperson Lumka Mahanjana confirmed the Pretoria North District Court granted Natasha Beyers R3 000 bail.

Beyers is facing a charge of murder for killing the father of her seven-year-old son. She allegedly got into an argument with her partner over a cigarette before stabbing him with a knife.

Mahanjana said the matter was postponed to 24 March for further investigation. A criminologist, Prof Anni Hesselink, said women normally had higher levels of self-control than men. Hesselink said research showed not all female killers weighed up the costs, such as the loss of the breadwinner, their children’s father, their husband or subsequent imprisonment.

“Situational, environmental, and social disorder factors play integral roles in the females’ lives that commit murder,” she added.

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Hesselink said external factors included being trapped in dysfunctional family lives, being exposed to childhood and adulthood violence, childhood abuse, abandonment, rejection, poor intimate bonds, limited education, financial stress, isolation and inadequate support structures.

Hesselink said research showed many women murdered men who abused them. But not all women who have killed others were motivated by their immediate circumstances. This week, Karel Derek Sait, Steven James Damon and Zurenah Smit returned to Western Cape High Court after being charged with the murder of well-known wealthy Stellenbosch businessman and farmer, Wynand Stephanus Smit.

The trio also faced charges of robbery with aggravating circumstances, robbery, forgery, uttering, illegal possession of firearms and the illegal possession of ammunition. In November, the Western Cape High Court sentenced pastor Melisizwe Monqo, his wife Siphosihle Pamba and hitman Phumlani Qhusheka on charges of kidnapping, robbery with aggravating circumstances and the murder of Hlompho Koloi.

Monqo was convicted on 26 charges for Koloi’s murder, which included robbery with aggravating circumstances, assault with intent to commit grievous bodily harm, housebreaking with intent to commit murder, illegal possession of a firearm, illegal possession of ammunition and 13 counts of fraud.

Pamba was convicted on 24 counts similar to her husband but given a lighter sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment because she was abused and forced to participate in the crimes.

Also in November last year, Suretha Brits, accused of being the mastermind behind the killing of her hotelier husband Leon Brits from Pofadder in the Northern Cape, was convicted and sentenced to 25 years’ direct imprisonment for murder and 15 years for robbery with aggravating circumstances.

In December last year, the High Court in Pretoria sentencedElenah Mashaba, 42, from Modderspruit in Brits to one life term for the premeditated murder of her 43-year-old Mozambican husband, Solomon Mashaba. Mashaba, who shared her husband with five other wives, offered two men R5 000 to kill her husband.

Professor Jaco Barkhuizen, head of the department of criminology at the University of Limpopo, said women who were psychopaths and able to kill were not as rare as people would think.

The murders Marinda Steyn committed in Krugersdorp could have been motivated by money, or the occult.

“It’s like a Charles Manson type motivation control, especially considering the cultish behaviour, the control and dominance,” he said.

Manson was an American criminal who led the Manson Family, a cult based in Califor nia, in the late 1960s. Some of the members committed a series of nine murders at four locations in July and August 1969.

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Criminologist Prof Dup Louw, who has worked with murderers for the past 30 years, said there was no “type” of female killer.

“What we see on TV and in movies of so-called profilers has been proven not to be reliable,” he said.

Louw said the golden rule, that the psychology of every person was unique, applied to murderers too.

“There were murderers who had a history of committing a crime and those who were firsttime offenders,” he said.

However, he said, looking at averages male murderers, they tended to have had a history of committing crimes, while female murderers were more likely to be first-time offenders.

He said this was especially applicable considering the cases of abused women murdering abusers. “They usually feel trapped and can’t escape otherwise.”

– marizkac@citizen.co.za