NEWS: Women’s bodies continue to pile up as more die at the hands of partners

Last updated on September 11th, 2021 at 02:43 pm

A chill-out session between a group of friends led to the discovery of a woman’s body under her boyfriend’s bed.

The friends suspected foul play when they did not see their friend’s girlfriend, Silindile Ndlovu, all day.

Their landlord and the man’s friend Michael Mathebula said they heard the couple arguing in the early hours of Saturday and then things went quiet.

Ndlovu’s body was found on Saturday evening. It was wrapped in a blanket and stashed under the bed in a room they rented in Mogoba Extension near Daveyton, Ekurhuleni. “I reprimanded them and they were fine.

We then chilled together and the woman was there as well. In the early hours of the morning, we decided to go to sleep.”

Mathebula said he went into the house and heard loud music coming from the couple’s room but didn’t think they were fighting again. “I don’t know how he ended up strangling her to death.”

Mathebula said at about 7am he went to check on the couple and the man peeped through the door.

Capt Khensani Mathebula said forensic investigations revealed that Zandile Mbatha, 25, from Emabovini in KwaZulu-Natal may have been murdered three weeks ago.

Neighbours who discovered the decomposing body said there was a bad smell coming from the RDP house the couple lived in.

They also suspected she may have been killed after they did not see her for a number of weeks. “We saw him during the day almost every day not knowing that he had hidden a dead body in the house,” said a neighbour who asked not to be named.

Community leader Simon Mkhwebane said after he was called by neighbours, he went to the man and asked him about the smell.

“He said it was a smell of rotten meat. I then called the community members and we forced him to open the house. The mob manhandled him.

One person went inside to the smelly bedroom where the decomposed body of the woman was found wrapped in plastic and a blanket.” Mbatha’s friend Noxolo Mkhwanazi said her friend had been opening up to her about the abusive relationship.

“She would always come with blue eyes and strangulation marks on her neck and cuts in her body.

We advised her to go back home but she loved her boyfriend and he would ask for forgiveness and she would give him another chance,” Mkhwanazi said.

Mathebula said the man would appear in the Benoni magistrate’s court tomorrow. In the same area, police said they found the bodies of a man and a woman in the bushes near Gabon informal settlement. Ubisi said police were still tracing their next of kin.

Meanwhile, Gauteng police spokesperson Capt Kay Makhubele said they were looking for the family of the woman whose decomposed body was found along the Golden Highway on Sunday.

(Sowetanlive)