Murder files: Man strangled girlfriend and hid body under his bed

A man who strangled his girlfriend in a rage and then buried her body in a shallow grave under his bed was sentenced to 20 years in jail for murder in the Gauteng High Court on Monday.

Samuel Thokozane Sibeko was sentenced to 20 years in jail for killing the woman he was in a relationship with and to a further three years imprisonment for defeating the ends of justice by hiding her body underneath his bed for more than a month.

Regional National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Phindi Mjonondwane said

Sibeko had pleaded guilty to the charges on 7 October 2021 and following the state’s acceptance of his plea, the court had found him guilty. The matter was postponed to 11 October 2021 for sentencing.

“In his plea explanation, Sibeko admitted that in the early hours of 26 June 2019, he strangled Mathapelo Alice Mbele inside his shack at Vlakfontein until she fell to the ground. He said that there was a heated argument about her coming home drunk the previous night,”  Mjonondwane  said.

“He added that, he then tied her hands and feet separately and then left his shack for a few hours, thinking that she just lost consciousness. Upon return, he found that she was not breathing and it then dawned on him that he had killed her. Out of panic, he covered her body with a blanket and left to sleep with friends,” Mjonondwane said.

After the fifth day, he decided to bury the body underneath his bed as an attempt to hide the crime from his friends, family and the police. When people asked about her whereabouts, Sibeko told them she went job-hunting and never came back.

“He continued sleeping over at his friends but would go over to his shack on weekends to check if the grave under his bed was not discovered. He states that, on 04 August 2019, he could no longer live with what he has done and decided to tell a communal friend about the murder and the grave. Sibeko asked the friend to call the police and when they arrived he pointed out the grave,” Mjonondwane said.

State Advocate, Coleen Ryan argued that violence against women had become a pervasive phenomenon internationally and that South Africa had become the femicide capital of the world. The killing of women by their partners has clearly become an epidemic and enormous social problem, she told the court. She further argued that such unconstitutional behavior should not be tolerated. 

In handing down his sentence the court ruled that it was a “gruesome murder” and that Sibeko had not wholly taken the court into his confidence and had failed to show genuine remorse.