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Themba
MTHOMBENI
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Necrophile
Number of victims: 2
Date of murders: July 2002 /
January 2003
Date of birth: 1982
Victims profile: A policeman
/
Thandiwe Masimula, 18
Method of murder:
Shooting
Location: Mhluzi, Middelburg, Mpumalanga, South
Africa
Status: Sentenced to life in prison on June 26, 2006
Necrophiliac sentenced to life in
prison
Pretoria News
June 27, 2006
A Witbank engineering student who shot
dead a 17-year-old childhood friend when she refused to have sex with
him was on Monday sentenced to life imprisonment.
Themba Mthombeni was given a life
sentence plus 15 years in prison on charges of murder, abduction,
violating a body, attempted rape and the unlawful possession of a
firearm.
Pretoria High Court Judge Mahomed Ismail
said the court could not be blinded by Themba Mthombeni's youth or feel
sorry for him.
"I am perplexed why a person with so much
potential would resort to such horrible crimes.
"The manner in which you acted cannot be
tolerated. A human life was taken as a result of your actions. Society
cannot condone or tolerate this type of conduct where people resort to
violence for the slightest excuse or provocation," said Ismail.
Emotional family members wept and had to
be consoled. They sat in silence in court for several minutes after
hearing Mthombeni was going to jail for at least the next 25 years.
Mthombeni earlier admitted that in April
2003 he had forced Thandiwe Masimula, 17, to accompany him to his
dormitory room at gunpoint. He shot her in the neck when she refused to
have sex with him, before raping her.
After locking her body in his room, he
went in search of other victims to rape. He pointed a firearm at two
school teachers who passed him in the street with the intention of
raping them as well. He fled after one of them sprayed him with mace.
He later returned to Thandiwe's room,
where he tried to rape her room-mate, but fled when her screams alerted
a neighbour. His young victim's decomposing body was found in his room
several days later. Ismail earlier referred to the crimes as "glaringly
heinous".
Man up for murder,
necrophilia
News24.com
September 22, 2003
Witbank - A young engineering student accused of
killing a policeman and later raping and killing a girl and keeping her
body in his bed for three days, appeared in the Pretoria regional court
on Monday.
Themba Mthombeni, 21, from Mhluzi near Middelburg in
Mpumalanga, has already pleaded guilty to the policeman's murder, saying
he did so in self defence when the cop allegedly tried to sodomise him.
He also pleaded guilty to stealing the policeman's
car, firearm and cellphone.
The policeman met Mthombeni in a bar and offered him
a place to stay for the night after Mthombeni had been kicked out of his
flat in Sunnyside, Pretoria, in July last year.
Mthombeni's case was scheduled for judgment on Monday,
but the case was postponed to October 7 because his lawyer was ill.
Mthombeni is still on trial in the Witbank district
court for the rape and murder of a first-year student in January this
year.
Thandiwe Masimula, 18, was found shot dead in
Mthombeni's bed in a block of flats in Witbank, Mpumalanga.
She'd been dead for three days.
Mthombeni faces charges of murder, rape, and
necrophilia after he allegedly told police that he had sex with her
after she had died.
He also faces charges of attempted rape involving
Masimula's flatmate, and a charge of attempted murder and the possession
of unlicensed firearm and ammunition after he allegedly confronted two
joggers while fleeing after the flatmate screamed for help.
He remains in custody until his next appearance in
the Witbank district court on September 29.
