Four convicted for beheading prostitute
Desiree Murugan, 39, was stabbed and decapitated. Desiree Murugan, 39, was stabbed and decapitated.
Durban — Three minors and a traditional healer were convicted in the Durban High Court of beheading a Durban prostitute, the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) said on Friday.
NPA spokeswoman Natasha Ramkisson-Kara said that Sibonakaliso Mbili, a traditional healer, and three minors including a 16-year-old girl, were convicted of murder on Thursday.
Mbili’s assistant, Vusumuzi Gumede, was acquitted. All five had pleaded not guilty to the murder.
The body of Desiree Murugan, 39, who was working as a prostitute, was found by municipal workers in 2014 in Shallcross Sports Ground. Her head was found a few days later in the Mfume area near Umkomaas on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast.
She had been stabbed 192 times before she was beheaded.
In September 2014 Falakhe Khumalo, who was sentenced after pleading guilty, told the Durban Regional Court that he was promised R2 million for the head of a white, Indian or coloured person by Mbili.
Murugan's younger sister, Jenette Murugan, told the court before Khumalo's sentencing: “We are bitter and angry. The maximum sentence should be enforced. It is the nature...the brutality thereof.”
She broke down in tears after explaining that her sister had hoped to be a fashion designer, but had become addicted to drugs while working at a hospital after her she and her husband had divorced.
It was this drug addiction that led to her elder sister becoming a sex worker.
“Irrespective of what my sister did, they had no right to do this. Nobody has the right to take a life, especially in this manner.”
The 18-year old enlisted the help of the three minors. According to Khumalo, the offer was made after Mbili had treated him for a sexually transmitted disease.
Ramkisson-Kara said that the four would be sentenced on March 31.