Johannesburg – It has been exactly a year since Tshegofatso Pule was last seen alive by her family, and her aunt has said that she still avoided the street in Roodepoort where her heavily pregnant niece’s body was found hanging from a tree.
Pule, a professional make-up artist, was eight months pregnant with Ntuthuko Shoba’s child. Shoba is believed to be the mastermind behind her murder.
She went missing on June 2, 2020 and a few days later police found her body.
Pule’s aunt, Keneilwe Moshe, tried to imagine her niece’s final moments.
“How was she reacting? Did she scream? What did she do? And I knew how she would react. She would say ‘it’s okay’ and close the eyes. And I’m asking myself, a highly pregnant woman who is tiny in her body. How? At what stage did he find himself taking the gun and shooting her?”
Those were the traumatic questions and images that still haunt the Pule family a year after she and her unborn child were murdered.
Moshe identified Pule at the mortuary, after police found a pregnant woman hanging from a tree in Durban Deep.
“I thank God that day, that the social services were there. You know, it played in my mind, behind my mind, like, ‘how did this happen? How did this person kill this child?’ and that night, I traumatised myself by even watching that video. Even now I can’t, I regretted why I watched that video when they hung her. I truly regret it. It was a horrific situation.”
Shoba is standing trial for her murder after Muzikayise Malephane confessed to killing her and secured a plea bargain with the state.
