Thabo Bester, notoriously renowned as the Facebook serial rapist and killer, supposedly died in prison in 2022, but new explosive photographic evidence, along with a wild revelation made by a figure close to the situation, suggests a possible prison break fitting for a blood-curdling Netflix script.
Is Thabo Bester alive and living in Sandton?
Social media has been in an uproar since Ground Up published its exclusive showing photos of a man resembling Bester shopping at Sandton City with a woman believed to be celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana, a month after he was pronounced dead inside his prison cell.
The photos, GroundUp reports, were taken by a store clerk, who was gob-smacked by the sight of Magudumana, a married woman, out shopping with a man who was not the husband she knew.
What the clerk did not know at the time was the chilling resemblance Magudumana’s acquaintance had to Bester, a sadistic serial rapist who was sentenced to life in prison in October 2011, for multiple sexual assault charges and murder.
The real head-scratcher is, if the man pictured below was indeed Bester, then who died in his prison cell in May 2022?
Who was killed in his prison cell?
Before we dive into the spine-chilling alternative events that may have unfolded inside a prison cell at the Mangaung Correctional Centre in May 2022, let’s harken back to Bester’s sadistic crime spree that resulted in the death of one woman and multiple acts of sexual assault against two others.
In October 2011, the Durban Magistrate’s Court sentenced Bester to 15 years imprisonment each for two counts of rape and another 15 years each, five of which were suspended, for two counts of aggravated robbery.
Bester pleaded guilty to luring women to hotels in Durban with the false promise of modelling jobs, only to rape and rob them at knife-point.
One of the women, the Facebook rapist gutted to death.
Bester served his sentence at the Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein until Tuesday, 3 May 2022, when the Department of Correctional Services announced in a statement that the serial rapist was found dead and charred beyond recognition after a fire broke out in his prison cell.
According to an explosive GroundUp investigation, however, details about Bester’s supposed death indicate a great likelihood that the person who died in that prison cell was not the convicted Facebook rapist.
Here is a summary of the facts uncovered in the investigation:
- The body collected from the prison cell stood at a height of 1.45m. Bester’s mugshot, captured in 2011, clearly shows he was at least 1.7m tall.
- The blood of a woman who identified herself as Bester’s mother (we will dive into this bizarre chapter below) was tested against a sample taken from the charred body, and the DNA results were a negative match. This suggests that either the woman was, indeed, not Bester’s mother, or the corpse recovered from the burned prison cell was not the convicted rapist.
- An autopsy conducted on the corpse determined the victim was killed by blunt force trauma, moments before he was charred.
- The post-mortem report also noted a strong smell of paraffin from the body’s trachea and bronchi. If Bester really killed himself in prison, he would’ve had to smuggle paraffin into a maximum-security prison, pour the accelerant over his body, with a great focus applied to his face and hands, then light a match and burn himself to death.
- An ongoing internal investigation is looking into the possible involvement of corrections officers in Bester’s alleged escape after several eyebrow-raising incidents occurred before the suspicious fire broke out inside the prison cell.
What does ‘Dr Nandipha’ have to do with Thabo Bester?
Somewhere along this bizarre story, Dr Nandipha Magudumana, a revered thought leader in her profession, is at the centre of a spine-chilling prison escape.
According to prison records, Magudumana, who’s married under civil law, identified herself as the customary wife of Bester when she applied to claim his body from the mortuary three days after the fire.
Records show Magudumana collected the body with every intention of cremating the remains but in the 11th hour, police intervened and confiscated the charred corpse for further investigations.
On 19 May 2022, Magudumana filed an urgent application at the Pretoria High Court to have the body released to her, citing her primary rights to burial as Bester’s customary wife.
However, not only is Magudumana registered in a civil marriage with another man, which inadvertently nullifies her customary union with Bester, but the celebrity doctor is a self-admitted pillar of strength to a serial rape convict.
In her affidavit, Magudumana revealed that she met Bester in 2006 and the two forged a close friendship while studying at Wits University. According to the celebrity doctor, who was listed in the Mail & Guardian’s coveted 200 Young South Africans list in 2018, she lost contact with Bester in 2011, around the time he was convicted.
The celebrity doctor added that she rekindled her relationship with Bester in 2017 and the convicted serial rapist proposed to her three years later.
However, no record of the said customary marriage exists.
Neither Magudumana nor the corrections department has surfaced with a statement addressing the speculation around Bester’s prison escape.
This is a developing story.
