Zintle Mtshali, accused of brutally murdering his wife, Khosi Mtshali, with dumbbells in their Reedville home on 29 November, appeared in the Springs Regional Court on Friday where he unsuccessfully attempted to block the media from taking his photograph.
Mtshali's legal aid attorney argued that the publication of his image would "just confirm to the public and the people around this child what the situation is" and further traumatise the couple's 15-year-old daughter. He wanted "the child to be protected from the further trauma of this situation," she said.
However, prosecutor Bhekisisa Mbatha revealed that the teenager had provided a statement to the police regarding the events of the night of her mother's death and had "indicated that she's going to testify" against her father.
Magistrate Betty Khumalo ultimately granted News24 the right to photograph Mtshali, emphasising the urgent need to expose cases of gender-based violence (GBV) and femicide. "It is another way of trying to send a message out there to the society, to say enough is enough," she stated.
Khumalo highlighted the alarming prevalence of GBV cases, noting, "On a daily basis, this court is bombarded with cases of this nature [that receive] serious sentences, even life in prison sentences, but there isn’t a decline. Instead, there is an increase." She added that it was in the "interests of justice to heighten the issues that the country is facing when it comes to gender-based violence".
The 15-year-old daughter is determined to speak out about her mother’s death.
“I am speaking so that my mother can get the true justice that she deserves, because, for a person with the life that she lived and the smile that she brought to people, she didn’t deserve to die in that manner. No one deserves to die in that manner,” she said.
“So at least if we talk about it and get at least justice for her and get awareness for this matter, it can at least stop the threat of gender-based violence (GBV) and femicide.”
The teenager recounted the horrific night of her mother's murder. While she and her 24-year-old half-sister were staying at their grandmother's house, Mtshali allegedly called from Khosi's phone, instructing her to give the phone to her grandmother.
The grandmother, who had spent the day with Khosi and her daughters, later received a call from a female police officer, urging her "to rush over to my mom’s house, something bad has happened".
"That’s when we all get out of the house and go there. When we arrived, we saw forensics department officers, police, everything, and an ambulance, and all that," she said. "And then when we entered the house, we saw that my mother had died and my father was nowhere to be found. There was blood all over the place. It was a horrific sight."
The nature and extent of the injuries that 46-year-old Khosi suffered on the night of her death are deeply disturbing.
Khosi Mtshali, who worked in finance at the Ekurhuleni College and was the family’s primary breadwinner, is also understood to have shared with her mother that her husband had accused her of being unfaithful to him.
Neither of her daughters believes the accusation to be true – but both are adamant that, in the highly unlikely event that there was any merit to these unsubstantiated claims, they had, in no way, given Mtshali the right to bludgeon their mother to death.
In the months leading up to her murder, Khosi's teenage daughter witnessed her mother running into her room to hide during a particularly violent argument with her husband, who frequently swore and shouted at her.
“He came home late one night and then everything just, you know, happened. One thing led to another, [and] they fought and fought. Whenever fights like these happen, she’d run into my room or run somewhere,” she said.
During one such incident, while her father tried to pull her mother out of her room, the 15-year-old insisted that she stay and sleep with her. “Then he left, and then I heard him faintly saying: ‘I’m going to kill you’.”
According to the State, Mtshali made good on that promise in the most horrific way on the night of 29 November.
The teenager also revealed that her mother, a vibrant and sociable woman who loved to dance and easily made friends, had lost a significant amount of weight in the months before her death. She suspects this was due to the emotional strain she was under.
“She said she had been on a diet, but with the way that I’ve been witnessing things and everything that has been happening, and me knowing her and the fact that she loves food, I felt that, no, it’s not a state of her wanting to lose weight. She might have rather been covering up for her depression and her lack of eating,” she said.
Gauteng police spokesperson Mavela Masondo confirmed that “the suspect handed himself over to the police after he allegedly killed his wife”.
Mtshali has not yet offered any explanation for his actions. He is scheduled to return to the Springs Regional Court on 19 December to apply for bail.
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