Mom faces man accused of killing son
The mother of a boy who was killed in Bronkhorstspruit has come face to face with the man who allegedly killed her son.
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Cape Town - The mother of a 12-year-old boy who was run over and killed in Bronkhorstspruit, on Friday looked into the eyes of the man who allegedly killed her son.
Johanna Mnguni, 38, had never set eyes on the accused, Gerhardus Esterhuizen, 75, who faces a charge of murder after allegedly running over and killing Tshepo Mnguni, 12 - until Friday.
Esterhuizen, who is out on bail of R8 000, appeared briefly in the Bronkhorstspruit Magistrate’s Court.
The child died on August 30 after he and his friends apparently went looking for a dog that had wandered off.
When they strayed on to Esterhuizen’s property located next to Rethabile, a township on the outskirts of Bronkhorstspruit, he was allegedly run over by the farmer.
“Tshepo and his two friends were seen by one of the men who work at the plot. This man apparently called the owner of the plot before chasing the boys who ran in different directions. During all of this, the owner came out with a bakkie and he ran Tshepo over,” according to Mnguni.
She said the accused then threw Tshepo’s body into the back of his vehicle, and drove to the neighbouring township of Zithobeni to find his family.
“When he got to Zithobeni, Tshepo was already dead. Instead of going to a police station or a clinic, he took Tshepo’s body and dumped it at another farm belonging to someone else,” the 38-year-old mother said.
The body was found at that farm by the farm’s owner, who then went to Rethabile after learning that a boy from the area was missing.
“The farmer came here and asked us what Tshepo was wearing because he had found a body of a boy on his property. We then went to the farm and identified Tshepo’s body,” she said.
The woman said the matter continued to drag on, preventing the family from finding closure.
“We as the family don’t really know what happened. This is what we are told, but if the case is being postponed every time we go there, we won’t be able to know exactly what happened.”
In court on Friday, where the case was postponed to December 8 for further investigation, community members from Rethabile and Zithobeni protested outside.
One of the community leaders, Daniel Thokwane, said they felt disappointed that Esterhuizen had been granted bail and that the matter had been postponed often.
“Murder is still being looked at in terms of skin colour because if this happened to a white child and the accused was black he wouldn’t have been given bail. And what is R8 000? Is that the worth the life of this child?” he asked.
The community, Thokwane added, had delivered a memorandum demanding that the matter be moved to the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria.
Saturday Argus
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