Tshegofatso Pule murder accused expected to plead guilty in February

The man who stands accused of the murder of eight-months pregnant Tshegofatso Pule is expected to plead guilty.

This comes after Muzikayise Malephane appeared in the South Gauteng High Court on Friday.

National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Phindi Mjonondwane confirmed to TimesLIVE that Malephane and his legal team had entered into a verbal guilty plea agreement.

“If all goes well we are expecting he will plead guilty on February 19 when the case is back in court,” said Mjonondwane.

Pule, a 28-year-old Johannesburg-based beautician, was brutally stabbed and her bloodstained body was found hanging from a tree in the Durban Deep area of Roodepoort in June last year.

She was heavily pregnant with her first child.

Days later police arrested Malephane in connection with her murder. He had been travelling back to Gauteng from Mpumalanga.

The Sunday Times reported in detail the gory scene when Pule’s body was discovered by members of the community.

She was barefoot and wearing only a bloodstained sleeveless top and leggings. She had been stabbed in the chest.

A rope had been tied around her neck and looped over a branch and her body hoisted aloft. A line where the rope was strung remains etched in the bark of the tree.

Pule’s murder was an act of unspeakable evil that haunts a nation already traumatised by a years-long pandemic of femicide.

TimesLIVE