'Cold-blooded, callous, heinous': Man, who stabbed girlfriend 19 times in front of child, locked up for life

• Published date: 26 April 2024
• Author: Chulumanco Mahamba
• Publication title: Citizen, The (South Africa)

The Clanwilliam Regional Court in the Western Cape recently sentenced Esethu Cawe to life imprisonment and declared him unfit to possess a firearm after he stabbed his girlfriend, Relebohile Ncephe, in front of her four-year-old child

Protection order breached

The court convicted the 26-year-old of breaching a protection order that was issued on 26 July 2022, which prohibited him from assaulting, threatening, or verbally abusing Ncephe.

The protection order also prohibited Cawe from entering her Khayelitsha residence, taking her property without her consent, or damaging her property.

He was also convicted for murdering Ncephe in front of her daughter inside her home on 22 August 2022, four days after the protection order was extended.

Cawe was sentenced to four years of direct imprisonment for breach of the protection order and life imprisonment for murder. According to NPA regional spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila, the sentences will run concurrently.

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According to the state prosecutor, Mark Taylor, the couple lived together, but when domestic violence started, Ncephe moved to her sister's house and obtained an interim protection order, which was served to Cawe.

"On the day of the incident, 22 August 2022, he repeatedly called her, after which she agreed to meet with him in the presence of her sister. Her four-year-old daughter also accompanied her," Ntabazalila said.

After the former couple started talking, her sister left them alone to give them privacy.

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