EXCLUSIVE | Thabo Bester’s mom opens up about failed hopes of building a relationship with him

Thabo Bester’s mother has opened up for the first time about how she had hoped to build a relationship with her fugitive son before he was sentenced to life imprisonment for rape and murder in two separate trials in 2011 and 2012.

Speaking exclusively to TimesLIVE Premium on Sunday, Maria Meisie Mabaso, 57, said she was in disbelief when she saw that her son was a rape and murder convict in the news in 2012.

Before she could get another opportunity to build a relationship with her son, Mabaso was plunged into grief when she heard that he had allegedly died after committing suicide in his single cell at the Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein last year.

Her mourning period was, however, suddenly cut short when police informed her that they suspected that the body found in Bester’s single cell was not her son’s.

“I did not raise Thabo, he was raised by my mother because I could not take care of him when he was a child. I worked in the Free State as a domestic, so my mother took him in,” Mabaso said.

Mabaso’s mother was also a domestic worker and took care of Bester in Johannesburg.

“I wish I was there for him, especially after my mother died, because I don’t think he would have turned out like he did,” said Mabaso.

I don’t think he would have turned into this person that everyone is talking about. I wish I had fostered a relationship with him.

—  Maria Meisie Mabaso, Thabo Bester’s mom

Mabaso told TimesLIVE Premium she deeply regretted not being in her son’s life.

“I don’t think he would have turned into this person that everyone is talking about. I wish I had fostered a relationship with him,” she said.

Mabaso explained that she had a frosty relationship with her mother, which led to her losing contact with Bester.

“We had a disagreement, like in any other relationship, and we decided that it was best that she took care of Thabo. That was the last time I heard from her,” she said.

In an affidavit signed by police on May 25 2022, Mabaso, from Sebokeng, made a sworn statement to police that she was Bester’s biological mother and that she had not given anyone permission to bury her son, saying: “I will personally bury my son and I’m going to use my preferred mortuary.”

However, Bester’s “body” was claimed by his lover Dr Nandipha Magudumana, who, through a court order granted by the Gauteng high court in Pretoria, had it ferried from Bloemfontein to the Soweto-based funeral parlour — Sopema Funeral Services — where it was allegedly cremated shortly after its arrival.

Magudumana, in an affidavit she submitted to the court on May 19 2022, argued that she was Bester’s common-law wife and wanted to give her “customary husband” a “dignified burial”.

Bester, 35, escaped from the G4S-run correctional facility in an elaborate and audacious scheme which involved using a stand-in corpse on May 3 2022. TimesLIVE Premium last week revealed the escape occurred after prison officials smuggled the body of an unknown person into the prison.

During the ensuing chaos Bester slipped out of the jail, allegedly disguised as a warder.