‘Cops told me my sister had hired hitmen to burn me and my 5 kids alive’

When Joyce Ndlovu entered the high court sitting in Palm Ridge on Wednesday, she could not bring herself to face her sister.

Former police constable Nomia Rosemary Ndlovu allegedly plotted to have Joyce and her five children burnt alive in their Bushbuckridge home.

Joyce took to the stand and turned her back to Nomia as she started delivering her testimony to the court.

Nomia appeared unfazed as she sat in the dock, taking down notes as her sister testified. 

Joyce recalled how at about 1am on March 7 2018, she received a weird phone call from her sister, who resided in Tembisa, Johannesburg.

“She called me and asked that I put her in contact with a traditional healer. She said she wanted the assistance of the healer because she was not getting along with our mother. She wanted to consult with the traditional healer to see if she could intervene,” said Joyce.

“She said she wanted the traditional healer to help her because our mother did not wish her well, did not want to see her married, have children and do well in life. She wanted to fix that using traditional healers,” said Joyce.  

She found that weird because first, her mother and sister got along well. Second, Joyce said she was a Christian who did not believe in traditional healers. She agreed, however, to help her sister and the two of them arranged that she would come to Bushbuckridge the next day. 

Then, Joyce said, the conversation got even stranger.

“She also asked me about my relationship with my neighbours. She said if anything happened to me, would my neighbours come to my help? I said yes, we are very close and they would come to my rescue if anything happened,” Joyce told the court.

Tears started streaming from her eyes as she told the court how she was shocked when several hours later a contingent of police turned up at her doorstep with her sister in tow, informing her she was arrested for plotting to burn Joyce and the children alive.

It was alleged Nomia had wanted to kill her so she could cash in on funeral and insurance policies she had taken out in Joyce’s name.

Police thwarted her plot when one of the hitmen she had hired to carry out the deal tipped off police.

The hitman told officers he was disturbed that the police constable, based at the Thembisa South police station, did not mind that she would be snuffing out the lives of Joyce’s children as well - with the youngest being just five months old at the time. 

A sting operation was set up. Nomia met up with the hitmen and drove with them to Bushbuckridge. Along the way, she described in detail how she wanted them to carry out the crime.

She had wanted her sister and the children to be given sleeping pills, have socks stuffed in their mouths and then be torched in the house.

Nomia was nabbed in Bushbuckridge after she had pointed out her sister’s house to the hitmen and had boarded a taxi back to Gauteng, where she was setting up her alibi, according to the state.

Joyce on Wednesday told the court she believed she and her sister had had a very good relationship.

She said over the years, her sister had asked her for her ID documents as well as the birth certificates of her five children so that she could insure them. Joyce never thought there was anything untoward about this as she was unemployed, adding she could not afford to take the policies out herself.

She was, however, never informed by her sister where the policies were taken out and for how much.

Besides plotting to kill Joyce, her nephews and nieces, Nomia also faces a string of cases involving the deaths of five relatives and her lover. She is alleged to have plotted and carried out their murders for the insurance payouts.

The victims were variously beaten to death, stabbed or shot. One was believed to have been driven over with a vehicle. 

One of Nomia’s first casualties was believed to have been her sister, Audrey Ndlovu, who was allegedly given tea laced with a harmful substance and then strangled to death in the room she was renting in Thembisa. Her decomposing body was found covered in a blanket in the same room.

Nomia is alleged to have cashed out more than R700,000 in insurance money. Audrey is believed to have known nothing about the hefty price tag that had been attached to her life.

Nomia has pleaded not guilty to the murder charges.