WATCH | Exclusive footage of woman 'ordering hitmen to kill sister, kids'

• Published date: 14 September 2021
• Author: Naledi Shange
• Publication title: SowetanLIVE (Johannesburg, South Africa)

The footage was allegedly captured by an undercover police officer who had hidden the recording device in the car in which he, Ndlovu and another recruited "hitman" were travelling.

The trio was headed to Bushbuckridge, where Ndlovu was due to show them her sister's house. She allegedly wanted the two men to burn her sister, Joyce, and her five children alive in the house.

In her own words, Ndlovu said they should "leave no witnesses behind".

In the recording, Ndlovu explained how she had earlier checked herself into hospital to create an alibi and then secured a day pass to leave the premises.

En route to Bushbuckridge, they stopped at a garage in Middelburg, Mpumalanga, where she purchased two litres of petrol and handed it to the undercover officer. The petrol was meant to be used to ignite the flames that would wipe out six of her family members.

It was also in this footage, taken during their fivehour drive from Johannesburg to Bushbuckridge, that she allegedly provided a motive for wanting her sister dead.

"You know I don't have money," Ndlovu is heard saying, addressing the alleged hitman, Njabulo Kunene. "You know I'm doing this so I can get a bit of money. You've seen that my car is on the brink of being repossessed. I don't have money," she said.

Ndlovu seemed unshaken and nonchalant about knowing her sister's children would also die in the fire.

When asked by the undercover officers whether the policies she had also covered the children, she replied: "It won't pay out for the children, only for [the mother]. But they cannot be left behind since they will be there too. You know that sparing them will mean leaving behind witnesses. So when a house burns down, everyone burns with it."

She had allegedly hoped the fire would be ruled as an accident and she would cash in on a large sum of money from the insurance policies.

Ndlovu was nabbed moments after she had pointed out her sister's house to the "hitmen" and boarded a taxi back to Johannesburg, where she was rushing to return to the Carstenhof Hospital in Midrand to cement her alibi.

Backtrack

It was through her work as a police officer at the Thembisa South police station that Ndlovu allegedly met two "hitmen" she hired to kill her mother, sisters, nieces and nephews.

The men, Kunene and Lakhiwe Mkhize, were crucial to the state's case as Ndlovu's trial played out in the court.

The court heard Kunene had been arrested several years ago by Ndlovu on a gun possession charge. He was later cleared of...