“God what is it that I have done?”
These were the chilling words, perhaps even a confession, that were uttered by a Daveyton nanny last year when the mother and great-aunt of the young boy she had killed returned home to find her half-naked on the floor and the child nowhere to be found.
But a year later, with her trial now concluded, the nanny – Mannana Celine Tsabane – is behind bars for murder. She is yet to admit why she strangled one-year-old Langelihle Mnguni to death, fracturing his neck in the process.
When the toddler’s mother, Lerato Mnguni, took to the witness box to testify in aggravation of Tsabane’s sentence earlier this week, the court heard how Tsabane had spun a web of lies to gain the trust of her employer and ultimately score a job.
Mnguni testified how all the lies had unravelled after the murder of her son.
She said when she hired Tsabane, the now 40-year-old had told her she had two children aged eight and 14.
But according to Mnguni, after her son’s death, the nanny’s sister in Lesotho revealed Tsabane did not have any children of her own.
“Rosinah had called me and told me her child had died when she was just a few months old,” said Mnguni.
With the motive unknown for this murder and Tsabane having denied any part in the killing, it’s questionable whether there may have been a psychological episode that perhaps led to her snapping and committing this murder.
But while her psychological state was at one point questioned during her trial, it was found to have never been a point of concern.
A former nanny, who like Tsabane had been linked to a family through a nanny placement agency, told Sunday Times Daily a reason Tsabane could have lied.
For some reason, people think if you don’t have a child yourself, it means you don’t have the ability to take care of children, and that is not the case.
— Mmabatho, nanny from Ekurhuleni
“When you are looking for these jobs, especially childminding, it is important that the family trusts you can do the job. It helps a lot when you are a parent yourself. They trust you and believe in your ability to take care of children,” said *Mmabatho, who asked that her surname not be published.
“For some reason, people think if you don’t have a child yourself, it means you don’t have he ability to take care of children, and that is not the case,” Mmabatho added.
Mnguni also revealed that when she went back to the contract she had signed with Tsabane, there was a big red flag she had previously missed.
Tsabane, who on Monday told the court she was a divorcee, had on her form listed her sister and husband as her next of kin.
Mnguni, however, pointed out all three shared the same surname of Tsabane, which raised suspicions about her marital status.
After being handed a guilty verdict, Tsabane had through her lawyer finally issued an apology to the grieving mom, who still doesn’t know why her child died.
She begged for mercy, adding that if she were jailed, her children would be left in the hands of her unemployed sister.
This, according to Mnguni, was yet another lie.
“Her sister is a teacher. She is the breadwinner of the family. And if she managed to pay for you, a private attorney, they will have the means,” Mnguni replied to Tsabane’s lawyer, Tebogo Maimela.
“The sister sold all her goats to pay for the legal fees,” said Maimela, trying to show his client’s plight.
Mmabatho, however, said at times employers were more sympathetic to their nannies or domestic workers if they knew they had people depending on them back home.
We have accepted that the child is gone, but I hope one day God will give her the strength to call me and tell me what happened.
— Lerato Mnguni
“Some would offer more money, bonuses and be understanding to let you go on holiday to go see your family. I don’t think others lie about this because they want to hurt anyone, but it’s because of desperation,” Mmabatho added.
During the trial, the court had heard how Langelihle’s mother, Lerato, had paid the nanny R200 more than the agreed amount. She had over the festive season treated her to a new hairdo ahead of her December holiday leave in 2018, and when she travelled to China, she returned with shoes for Tsabane.
Delivering his judgment, judge Herman Broodwyk said punishment was always difficult, but looking into the eyes of a grieving mother was even more difficult.
In the high court sitting in Benoni, he handed Tsabane 25 years for killing the toddler and a further five years for defeating the ends of justice. The sentences would run concurrently.
Tsabane had throughout proceedings alleged that in the early hours of October 18 2019, she had been attacked by the family neighbour, who had come into the house with his knife-yielding friends who scraped the inner part of her arms, forced her to drink a concoction she believed was poisonous and fled with the baby.
The baby, however, was later found in the family storeroom. A bandage was dangling around his neck. He had been strangled to death.
Without answers to why the child died, the boy’s family have been left speculating why the nanny could have committed the crime.
“We have accepted that the child is gone, but I hope one day God will give her the strength to call me and tell me what happened,” Mnguni said.
