Insurance payout murder: Eastern Cape couple hired domestic then plotted her death

Lengthy jail terms have been handed to an Eastern Cape couple and three accomplices who colluded to murder an employee for funeral policies they had taken out on her. 

The couple had employed the victim, who was staying in the same street as them at Lingelihle in Nxuba, formerly Cradock, in 2021.

In October 2022 she and her boyfriend, with whom she was living, were attacked in their home. He was fatally stabbed. She was stabbed and raped, but survived to testify against their attackers.

Zizipho Pani, 34, her husband Siyathemba James, 39, her relative and hitman Sinethemba Pani, 34, and Sizwesethu Jonas, 34, were this week sentenced to life imprisonment plus 15 years for their roles in the murder and attempted murder by the high court of Makhanda, sitting in Nxuba.

Masixole Sokoyi, 19, a minor during the commission of the offences who was found to have raped the woman, was sentenced to an effective 25 years' imprisonment.

Judge Nozuko Mviko said the courts had a duty to impose sentences that would deter would-be perpetrators of insurance policy murders.

National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Luxolo Tyali said Zizipho Pani was the mastermind. She had acquired funeral policies on the life of the victim with Standard Bank and Absa in 2021 that would pay R200,000 upon her death.

With the promise of a R50,000 bounty, she solicited the services of the men to kill the victim.

Both victims had been left for dead, Mviko said. “However, the woman managed to crawl to neighbours and an ambulance was summoned. She was able to tell them who her attackers were.”

The assailants went on the run.

“It was during that time that Zizipho Pani and her husband took them to a sangoma in the neighbouring town of Cookhouse.”

There, community members rounded on them and they had to be rescued by police. They were subsequently arrested.

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