A 24-year-old man was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering a 64-year-old man and raping his sister at a shop in Prestbury, Pietermaritzburg in June.
Melikhaya Fikizolo was sentenced in the Pietermaritzburg High Court on Wednesday. The identity of the 67-year-old woman he raped is protected.
Fikizolo faced five charges: murder, two counts of rape and two counts of robbery. He pleaded guilty to killing the man he claimed murdered his mother in 2011. He also pleaded guilty to raping the man’s older sister shortly after the murder.
Acting Jude Elsje-Marie Bezidenhout sentenced Fikizolo to life for rape and murder and 15 years for robbery. She rejected his version that he sought revenge for his mother’s murder.
The 64-year-old alleged mom killer was stabbed more than fifty times.
In his guilt plea, Fikizolo described how he used Facebook to track down and lure the man whom he said killed his mother 10 years ago. The 24-year-old man said he pretended to be a white woman and arranged to meet with the man.
Fikizolo told the court that the deceased dated his mother between 2009 and 2011 and that they used to spend time in hotels in the area.
He said the deceased man killed his mother in 2022 by strangling his mother while he was watching the whole thing, in King Williams Town (Qonce) in the Eastern Cape.
In pursuit of revenge, Fikizolo said he created a fake account on Facebook and arranged to meet with the man at Shell Garage.
After seeing it was him, he followed him to a shot where he stabbed him more than 50 times to death and raped his sister, who arrived at the scene two minutes later.
Source: The Witness, IOL, image from Twitter: SAPS