http://www.drum.co.za 1 AUGUST (^2019) | 9
FANI
MAHUNTSI,
DAILY
SUN,
FACEBOOK/MSIDOS.WAMAHIT
ABOVE:AfterTokkieTlaka(ABOVERIGHT)wasreportedmissing,hercellphone
wastracedtoMndawe’shome,wherepolicefoundherbodyandthoseofother
murdervictims.RIGHT:NeighbourLizzyMasukasayssheregularlyasked
Mndawetolookafterhergrandchildren.
H
ER home is separated from
the graveyard of death by a
chicken-wire fence.
Mndawe’s three-roomed
house has been torched,
allegedly by angry commu-
nity members outraged that the young
women’s bodies were found in the back
yard of one of their own. This has
destroyed evidence and compromised
the case.
Four bricks used to support his mat-
tress are visible through the shattered
windows.
Gog’ Lizzy gazes at the pawpaw tree in
Mndawe’s garden. He often shared the
fruit and vegetables he grew in abun-
dance with neighbours and friends. “I
can’t believe I’ve been eating food from
this soil,” she says.
She’d always regarded Mndawe a bit
of a ladies’ man but she can’t believe the
women’s bodies were buried practically
under her nose.
“I watched as girls went in and out of
his house. I would see them wash his
clothes and clean his house. Sometimes
it would be two girls at the same time,”
she tells us.
The devout Christian occasionally
askedMndawe to look after her grand-
children, girls aged between nine and 14,
so she could attend church on those
Sundays when her son, a long-distance
truck driver, had to work.
“I trusted him with them because I
thought he was a good person,” she says.
“I didn’t know he was capable of some-
thing like this.”
Those who know him agree. His friend‘I wasgrowing
myplantsnextto
deadbodies’
Bernard Mashaba d
scribes Mndawe as a goo
guy with a weakness for
women. “I still ask myself
what happened to this
boy because he’d go to
work, come back and go
to his garden. He wasn’t troublesome.”
Mndawe reportedly confessed to com-
mitting multiple murders after he was
arrested in June and charged with the
murder of 24-year-old Tokkie, who is
thought to have been his last victim.
Nomthandazo (18) and Felicia (19) –
who were close friends – were found
buried beneath the floor of an extra
room Mndawe was building, while the
bodies of Banele (15), Noxolo (19) and
Tokkie were hidden in the garden.
One of the victims was buried with her
cellphone, according to reports.
Bernard is still taken aback by the
gruesome discovery: “We ate his vege-
tables not knowing there were bodies
buried there. They were fresh and his
soil was very rich, so we enjoyed free
veggies. I don’t think anyone can lie and
say they didn’t eat it.”
Another friend of his, Vusi Mnisi (30),
says he thinks Mndawe couldn’t live with
his secrets anymore. “He wasn’t sleeping
at all. He worked as a security guard but
he would come back from work in the
afternoon and buy us alcohol every day.”
The three drinking buddies would sit
and drink at Mndawe’s house.
“There was no smell,” Vusi says.
“I don’t know what he used to kill the
smell but we drank there and we didn’t
smell anything foul.”T
OKKIE’Ssis-
terGladness
knewsome-
thing was
wrongwhen
she hadn’t
rdfromherina while.
ie,whomshedescribed
rivate,hadgoneouton
butGladnessstarted
yingwhenshehadn’t
urned home to her
ur-year-olddaughter
ftera fewdays.
Shefileda missing
personreportwiththe
Masoyipolice, who
trackedTokkie’scell-
hone.Itledthemto
ndawe’shouse.
okkiehadarrangedto
et him through Face-
ok, Times Live reports.
The pair had only known
each other for three days.
Her sister’s alleged killer
is facing a lifetime behind
bars but it’s little comfort
to Gladness. “I miss her,” she says. “We
were only two girls and three brothers,
all of whom are married.
“I want him to die. I think I’ll have
peace when I know he is also dead. What
he did is painful. I miss my sister every
day; I miss her smile and I miss her
teasing me. Now I have to look after her
daughter because Tokkie is dead.”
August marks a year since Noxolo’s
family last saw her. She was in matric at
Mshadza Secondary School when she
disappeared last year.
Her mother, Thembisile Mdluli, says
she wasn’t worried when Noxolo didn’t
come home after a few days as she often
spent weeks at her friends’ homes “but
I used to call her almost every day and
she did the same”, she says. “Then she
suddenly stopped calling me.”
The distraught mom says she received
a text message from her daughter’s
phone warning her to stop calling.
“I couldn’t sleep or eat, thinking about
my child. I’ve lost weight because of this.”
She reported her daughter missing to
police but claims no one did anything.
Desperate, Thembisile wrote to SABC1’s
Khumbul’ekhaya for help to find her only
daughter. Now the mom knows what
happened, yetshestill has questions.
“I want to knowwhy this boy killed
my daughter.”