Charlene Felicity Mathews, the wife of recently murdered Bushbuckridge prominent chief Clyde Mnisi, was viciously gunned down in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
Calcutta police launch manhunt for Clyde Mnisi wife killers
In a statement, Mpumalanga police spokesperson Brigadier Selvy Mohlala confirmed the incident took place at the late chief’s Calcutta home at approximately 01:10 in the morning.
From the evidence collected thus far, it’s believed several armed men broke into Mnisi’s gated homestead and shot Charlene and two other male victims.
When police arrived at the scene minutes later, Mnisi’s wife had already lost her life due to multiple gunshots to her head, while the two male victims were clinging to life with serious injuries.
Both men, unidentified at this stage, were rushed to a nearby hospital for emergency treatment, Brig Mohlala confirmed.
At the centre of the investigation, police revealed, is determining how the suspects made it into Mnisi’s highly secure property undetected and escaped without leaving so much as a trace behind.
“A team of investigators has been assembled and have already began with the probe with the hope to arrest the perpetrator(s),” Brig Mohlala revealed.
While a motive for this brutal homicide and double attempted murder has yet to be established, early indications suggest Charlene’s gruesome death could be linked, in some capacity, to Clyde Mnisi’s assassination.
“No one has been arrested thus far,” police confirmed.
Is Charlene Mathews death linked to Mnisi’s assassination?
The 37-year-old alleged rhino horn kingpin, who was anointed as chief of the Mnisi tribe in October 2022, was travelling with his driver near Kruger Mpumalanga International (KMI) airport, on the evening of Sunday, 26 March 2023, when five heavily armed men ambushed them.
In a statement released at the time, Brig Mohlala revealed that a BMW X5 pulled up to the chief’s Avanza, which was forced to a halt due to a tyre puncture, “then alighted from the vehicle with high-calibre rifles and went straight to the passenger side where the chief was sitting.”
Based on evidence collected from the gory crime scene, it’s believed Chief Mnisi was the specific target of the alleged murder plot since his driver escaped the hail of gunfire with non-life-threatening wounds to his legs.
Clyde Mnisi was a prime suspect in a case against a notorious syndicate believed to be active in a “massive trafficking network of poached rhino horn”.
According to anti-poaching group ENACT, Mnisi, along with six other suspects, including now-deceased Hazyview crime boss Petros Sydney Mabuza, commonly referred to by his clan name, Mshengu, and notorious ex-cop ‘Big Joe’ Nyalunga, were at the helm of a sophisticated network of organised crime groups involved in theft, conspiracy to commit a crime, illegal buying and selling of rhino horns, corruption, money laundering and racketeering in the western boundary of the Kruger region.
“The syndicate is alleged to have exerted influence over a swathe of territory along the Kruger western boundary. It stretched from Belfast and Cork to the east of Sabi Sands Game Reserve, down to Calcutta, Mkhuhlu, the Shabalala tribal trust area and Hazyview, where Nyalunga and Mabuza had homes a few kilometres apart,” ENACT revealed in an explosive investigative report published in February 2023.
As reported by Sunday Times, Mnisi was due to appear in court for a long list of serious charges in April 2023.