Fabian Patience murder: Family not happy with slow progress
Lilly Patience said she is of the view that the investigative team has failed to connect crucial evidence to the three men linked to the death of her son.
POLOKWANE – Lilly Patience, the mother of a Westenburg man brutally murdered on January 19 while walking home from work, has broken her silence to express her disappointment with the slow progress of the investigation over the past five months.
Filled with sorrow, Patience said she is of the view that the investigative team has failed to connect crucial evidence to the three men linked to the death of her son, Fabian, who was 44 years old at the time of his murder.
This frustration comes after the case was recently postponed again for the collection of evidence, despite what she and her family believe to be already sufficient evidence.
According to earlier court proceedings attended by Polokwane Observer, the state argued that Jan Maboka, Simon Mahlare, and Sello Ephraim Matsebadi are connected to the murder weapon as well as Fabian’s cellphone, which was found in their possession at the time of their arrest.
These items are crucial in proving intent and have been kept as state evidence.
Patience mentioned that additional evidence was handed over to the investigating officer by a family member shortly after the incident.
Fabian was killed in Nirvana while walking home from work in the central business district on that fateful afternoon.
Despite this, she expressed particular displeasure when the case was postponed again recently on the basis that the investigating officer needed more time to gather evidence.
“A relative even handed over his clothes that were stained with blood to the investigating officer months ago. What has been the delay in testing all of those things to find if there is a positive link to the three accused? It is only now that he is doing the runaround, delaying the matter from going to trial,” she explained to Polokwane Observer.
From the beginning, this case has garnered significant support from the residents of Westenburg, who signed a 21-page petition demanding no bail for the accused men, who have been kept in police custody since their arrest.
The state has been opposing bail, arguing that the three men worked together with a deliberate and common purpose to commit the crime.
It was also revealed that two of the accused, Mahlare and Matsebadi, are previous convicts in robbery cases.
The legal counsel for the accused requested to abandon the bail application based on the seriousness of the offence and his latest briefing from the three men.
