Lele Nkutho’s phone holds an image of her cousin Dimpho Mohau at a time when the police still had a chance to save her life. That picture was taken in January 2018 and shows the injuries her ex-boyfriend Vusi Mjoli dealt her, after he had kidnapped her.

What isn’t seen in that picture are the other injuries. On the day of the assault on 8 January Mohau was also raped. Her rapist escaped justice then, after the police bungled the investigation and a scared Mohau withdrew the charges against him.

But on Tuesday morning her rapist, kidnapper and murderer finally got justice, when Judge Majake Mabesele, in the Johannesburg High Court, sentenced Mjoli to two sentences of life imprisonment for rape and murder.

He was also given a five-year sentence for kidnapping, 18 months for assault and two years for defeating the ends of justice. Mjoli’s attorney, Rodgers Machovani, had tried on Monday to argue that the judge give his client a more lenient sentence, by highlighting that he was just 32 years old and had three young children whom he supported.

But Mabesele responded on Tuesday that:  

“The personal circumstances of the accused in my view do not justify departure of discussed minimum sentences in counts three and four [rape and murder].

“There is no doubt that she died a painful death,” the judge added.

The five counts on which Mjoli was sentenced related to two incidents. The first happened in 2018, and the picture Nkutho has on her phone of Mohau was taken in the aftermath of that incident. On 8 January, Mjoli, with two friends, kidnapped Mohau outside the Bree Street taxi rank in the Johannesburg CBD. Mjoli took her to his house in Soweto, where he assaulted and raped her.

Mohau opened a case at the Moroka police station in Soweto. The investigating officer told Mohau that she was going to be at a conference for two weeks and that Mohau must locate her ex-boyfriend and then phone the police on their call centre number 10111.

A month later Mohau went to the Johannesburg Central police station and withdrew the charge against her ex-boyfriend. In the statement she wrote that: “Once he can get bail, he will hunt me and he will kill me. I know him very well, he is evil and I am so scared of him.”

The police didn’t investigate the matter further, and Mabesele said he would be sending a copy of his judgment to the Independent Police Investigative Directorate, the body that provides oversight over the SAPS.

Two years later, in February 2020, Mjoli killed Mohau after he lured her away from a house where she had taken refuge. He kicked her so savagely that he fractured her ribs, which, the court heard, prevented her from breathing and led to her death. He then hid her body, wrapped in a duvet, under his bed for five days. When the police came to his house Mjoli was in the process of digging a grave to hide the body. He went on the run and was caught two days later.

Nkutho refused to look at the crime scene pictures of her dead cousin. “I don’t want to remember her like that, I want to remember her as she was,” Nkutho said, outside courtroom 2D.

How she remembers her, is in another photograph she has on her phone.

Here Mohau wears the beautiful smile her mother Ruth Mgaki talked about. She is in her Dis-Chem company uniform, back before Mjoli told her to leave that job.

“This is a numb victory, we need a person, not a judgment,” said Nkutho. “She was an only child, who left a son who was an only child. So, mother and son, left alone. We are happy with the judgment, we couldn’t ask for more. But there is nothing to celebrate as she is not here.” DM