What led to a trail of dead bodies and R1,4m in life insurance payouts?

One million four-hundred-thousand rand.

That is the value of six human lives, calculated as a gruesome tale of former police constable Nomia Rosemary Ndlovu’s alleged trail of murder and greed unfolds in court.

For years, after taking an oath to serve and protect, Ndlovu, then at the Thembisa south police station in Gauteng, attended to call-outs and complaints while allegedly plotting the deaths or attempted killings of family members to claim on life insurance policies.

As the trial continues, Ndlovu’s sister, who she allegedly tried to have drugged and burnt alive at home with her children, will testify. She is among at least 40 witnesses.

When the trial got under way several weeks ago in the high court, sitting in the Palm Ridge magistrate’s court, a hitman she allegedly tried to recruit to kill her sister and children told the court Ndlovu cited mounting debt with a loan shark as pushing her to kill.

Her mother, sister and five nieces and nephews allegedly narrowly escaped death after the alleged hitman tipped off authorities in 2019. Ndlovu has been in jail since then.

After six years, six lives had been taken for about R1.4m in funeral and life insurance policies, some of which Ndlovu is accused of fraudulently taking out on behalf of her victims, listing herself as a beneficiary.

It was en route to Bushbuckridge, where her sister and her children were to be murdered, that Ndlovu’s alleged killing spree ended.

She was surprised to learn that one of the men she had been travelling with from Kempton Park to Bushbuckridge, during which she detailed how she wanted him to drug and burn the family of six, was an undercover police officer.

She was arrested shortly after she pointed out her sister’s house to the men. 

Police have not ruled out that more people could have died, including Ndlovu’s two children, who passed away in mysterious circumstances.

Over the past week the court heard that each time she identified a target among her relatives, she timeously registered them for funeral benefits, paid the premiums and struck just as the policy allowed for a cash payout.

The state is yet to explain what it believes Ndlovu’s motivation to allegedly kill was — whether she desperately needed cash or was simply greedy.

Over the past week the court heard that each time she identified a target among her relatives, she timeously registered them for funeral benefits, paid the premiums and struck just as the policy allowed for a cash payout.

Forensic investigators from insurance companies that paid out took to the stand to detail how in one instance she listed her cousin, Witness Madala Homu, as her spouse on a R20,000 funeral policy.

She didn’t manage to cash out this policy because, among other things, she would have needed to provide proof he was her spouse. But other insurance policies paid her more than R100,000 for his death.

Constable Tshildzi Prince Matshika testified about reporting to a scene near Thembisa where Ndlovu’s lover, Yingwani Maurice Mabasa, was found dead.

His body, with numerous stab wounds, had been tossed into the veld.

Mashika dialled the last number recorded on the victim’s phone. He said Ndlovu answered, confirmed she knew the owner of the phone and was on her way to the scene.

“She arrived 30 minutes later. We showed her the body ... she said she would inform his family of his passing,” Matshika said.

Mabasa had survived two previous attempts on his life. In the first, a gunman confronted him at home. The gun jammed as the hitman pulled the trigger.

The second time Mabasa was asleep in the bedroom he shared with Ndlovu when the room suddenly caught alight. Bottles of petrol had been placed under the bed. He narrowly escaped the inferno.

Ndlovu, through her legal aid lawyer, denied any knowledge of this, as she has done with much of the testimony presented thus far.

Last week the court also heard how despite insurance claims being paid out to her, Ndlovu at times failed to assist in burying the victims and distanced herself from the burials.