As the trial of convicted murderer Percy Khoza draws to an end, the family of the young woman he bludgeoned to death is left with unanswered questions.
Mary-Lee Macumbe's mother, Suzan Langa, who has attended court proceedings religiously, is still struggling to understand what led Khoza to brutally murder her child in 2014.
"We don't have a clue why he killed her. That is the million-dollar question for us."
Sentencing was postponed yesterday in the Johannesburg High Court.
Macumbe was stabbed almost 40 times, mostly in her neck. She was found stuffed into the boot of her car that had been abandoned in Malvern.
Khoza and Macumbe were planning to meet that day to go to a shopping centre. He told the court was that his girlfriend at the time, Kgomotso Masemola, had stabbed Macumbe in a jealous rage after finding her at his Troyville home.
He claimed Masemola threatened to harm his daughter if he did not help her to clean up the scene and dispose of the body. The court rejected his version. It found Masemola's cellphone records contradicted Khoza's testimony.
Masemola was arrested shortly after Macumbe's death and was found in possession of the dead woman's phone.
She was released after the court found Khoza had given her the cellphone and that she had no idea that it had belonged to Macumbe.
The Macumbe and Masemola families sat together on one side of the court yesterday; Khoza's mother and a young woman were on the other side.
The families brought together by the murder walked out of court, not saying a word to Khoza's family.
- SowetanLIVE
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