A 29-year-old security guard, who raped and murdered a two-year-old girl in Sandton, Johannesburg was handed two life sentences on Thursday.
Thokozani Mthiyane, 29, a father of two, was found guilty of rape and murder in the Johannesburg High Court, before being sentenced.
Mthiyane was also convicted on charges of causing a child to witness a sexual offence and defeating the ends of justice for which he received sentences of five and three years respectively.
The charges would run concurrently with the life sentence.
“Rape is a despicable crime. The accused was vulnerable and helpless,” said Judge Maletsatsi Mahalelo.
The incident occurred when the toddler’s mother left the little girl in the care of a 14-year-old. Mthiyane, a security guard at the complex in Morningside, Sandton, then made his way into their home where he raped and murdered the child in front of the teenager.
He threatened the
teenager and told her to say the child died because she had fallen off the bed or he would kill her too.
The girl later confessed to her grandmother after being told there was no evidence of the baby falling.
A postmortem report indicated that the two-year-old died of strangulation.
A pathologist earlier told the court it could have taken about half an hour for her to die.
During the trial,
Mthiyane told the court that he could not remember what happened on the day of the incident.
He has two children of his own, aged five and seven, who live with their mothers in KwaZulu-Natal.
Judge Mahalelo denied Mthiyane’s application for leave to appeal.