Col Nthipe Boloka: The other cop who Nomia Rosemary Ndlovu allegedly plotted to kill

25 May 2022 - 06:48
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Station commander of the Tembisa south police station, Col Nthipe Boloka, who convicted serial killer Nomia Rosemary Ndlovu is alleged to have plotted to kill.
Station commander of the Tembisa south police station, Col Nthipe Boloka, who convicted serial killer Nomia Rosemary Ndlovu is alleged to have plotted to kill.
Image: Kempton Express Thembisan

Convicted serial killer Nomia Rosemary Ndlovu was on Wednesday expected to return to the Kempton Park magistrate’s court where she faces several more charges linked to two separate cases.

Ndlovu is accused of plotting to murder the officer who investigated her killing sprees of her own family members, Sgt Keshi Mabunda.

The other officer she is accused of plotting to kill is Col Nthipe Boloka, who was her station commander at the Tembisa south police station where she served as a sergeant until her arrest.

Ndlovu is alleged to have plotted the murders of Mabunda and Boloka from behind bars following her arrest in March 2018.

Boloka, who has more than 30 years of police service, was key in Ndlovu’s arrest in 2018. He was allegedly the first police officer to find out from an informant — one of the hitmen she had hired — that she was plotting the murders of her family members.

Boloka organised her entrapment, which involved the hitmen and an undercover police officer who she thought would carry out the murders of her sister Joyce and her five children by burning them alive in their Bushbuckridge home.

Ndlovu confessed she was desperate for money and wanted Joyce killed so she could cash in on insurance policies she had taken out on her sister.

Joyce Ndlovu was told by police how her sister Rosemary Ndlovu had wanted to kill her and her five children.
Joyce Ndlovu was told by police how her sister Rosemary Ndlovu had wanted to kill her and her five children.
Image: Ziphozonke Lushaba

It was while on a drive from Johannesburg to Bushbuckridge that Ndlovu gave incriminating evidence to the “hitmen”. She was not aware they were recording the entire five-hour trip.

Speaking to TimesLIVE this week, Boloka was reluctant to comment on the pending case against Ndlovu, saying it would be sub judice.

He said during the two years he worked with Ndlovu, he had seen “amazing things” at the station. This included loan sharks who came to the premises looking for her.

“At times she would be reluctant to come to work. At least four or five days a month she would miss work,” said Boloka, who suspected this was because of her cash troubles and the loan sharks who were always on her trail.

During the trial in which she was found guilty of murdering six of her relatives, including her lover Maurice Mabasa, Ndlovu battled to tell the court how she had spent the almost R1.4m she had received in insurance payouts.

The court heard how she hardly assisted with the burials of her family members. Most were bludgeoned to death and at least one was poisoned and strangled.  

After Ndlovu’s arrest for the failed plot to kill her sister, nieces and nephews, Boloka started investigating whether there were more cases linked to Ndlovu and learnt of other pending investigations against her.

The case eventually landed in Mabunda’s hands. He already had started digging into Ndlovu’s policies she had taken out on her family members.

In the other case Ndlovu is set to face, she is a co-accused alongside another former police officer, Nomsa Mudau.

Nomsa Mudau is charged alongside Nomia Rosemary Ndlovu for conspiracy to commit murder.
Nomsa Mudau is charged alongside Nomia Rosemary Ndlovu for conspiracy to commit murder.
Image: Supplied

Nomsa Mudau was also arrested in 2018 after she had allegedly plotted, reportedly with the assistance of Ndlovu, to kill her husband, Justice Mudau.

That plan was thwarted when the alleged hitmen told Justice about the plot to murder him.

The two former police officers were initially charged for conspiracy to murder Justice in March 2018, the same month Ndlovu was arrested for trying to kill her sister and her children.

The case was, however, provisionally withdrawn and re-enrolled this year.

Nomsa has since divorced her husband.

The officer, who is out on warning, appeared in court last month heavily pregnant and stood in the dock alongside Ndlovu, who has been behind bars since 2018. Nomsa told the court she was due to give birth any day.

Both women, who did not look  at each other, opted to use Legal Aid.

Rosemary Ndlovu and her co-accused Nomsa Mudau appearing at the Kempton park regional court in April 2022
Rosemary Ndlovu and her co-accused Nomsa Mudau appearing at the Kempton park regional court in April 2022
Image: Thapelo Morebudi

Ndlovu told the court she was unaware why she was there and said she had only been informed the day before of her upcoming case.

Mudau's ex-husband, Justice, sat at the back of the gallery during proceedings. In an interview ahead of court proceedings last month, he said he was eager to see justice unfold.

Ndlovu is serving six life sentences for the murders of her six relatives. She was also found guilty of charges relating to insurance fraud and the alleged plot to kill Joyce and her children. She was also found guilty of conspiring to kill her mother, Maria Mushwana. This was reportedly also so she could cash in on insurance payouts. 

Ndlovu pleaded her innocence from the start to the end of her trial. 

TimesLIVE

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