The family of Sanelisiwe Mfaba is still struggling to come to terms with her tragic death.
Sanelisiwe Mfaba: Family escorts slain mom to final resting place
The 28-year-old whose body was found, bound by her hands and feet and shoved into a plastic bag, near a railway line near the Dobsonville Gardens bridge was laid to rest at her home in Newcastle, KwaZulu-Natal on Saturday 20 June.
Before she was laid in her final resting place, the Mfaba family visited the area where her body was found to collect her spirit, a cultural precaution that is taken to ensure that the victim truly rests in peace.
The last time Sanelisiwe Mfaba was seen alive was on Thursday 11 June 2020. She was picked up by her then-boyfriend Tshepo Mashego at a funeral in Soweto, Johannesburg.
Her sister Xolile received a strange text message from Mashego later than day, informing her that Mfaba was inebriated and that he would drop her off at home the following morning.
This, of course, never happened and instead, Mfaba’s lifeless body was discovered by passers-by near the Sasol petrol station near the Dobsonville Gardens bridge in Extension 3 on the morning of Friday 12 June 2020.
Mfaba filed attempted murder charge on Mashego before
Mfaba’s brother Muzi Ngcobo recently spoke to Sunday Times, detailing the extent of the abuse she suffered in her relationship with Mashego.
At one point in 2017, she had filed an attempted murder charge but quickly dropped it after the taxi driver pleaded for another chance.
“She took him back because of the child. We asked her so many times to leave that man. She would tell me she was thinking about her daughter, and she was trying to maintain the image of the relationship for the child. She died trying to keep up that facade,” Ngcobo said.
No amount of resources at her disposal could have triumphed the snake oil Mashego sold Mfaba. In the end, her hopes of maintaining a two-parent household ended with her life tragically taken by the father of her four-year-old daughter who, according to Ngcobo, has found it incredibly hard to come to terms with not seeing her mom again.
“I was holding her in my arms, and I knew I had to tell her the truth, but in a way that she can understand. I told her that she will never see mommy when she’s awake, but when she’s sleeping her mommy will visit her in her dreams. I was trying to teach her that her mom is in heaven,” he told the cited publication.
Mashego has stated his intention of applying for bail and the hearing has been scheduled for Wednesday 29 July 2020.