Dr Nandipha Magudumana is believed to have “fake-buried” two of the three corpses she allegedly stole and is said to have arranged for bags of mealie meal and packs of boerewors to be placed in the coffins to replace the bodies.
TimesLIVE Investigations can reveal that an anonymous tip-off to state morticians in April last year — the month before Facebook rapist and murderer Thabo Bester's audacious escape from Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein — caused the police to try to exhume the two bodies.
Magudumana had claimed the bodies were those of her father and brother. But instead of finding their bodies in the caskets, police and state forensic pathologists discovered bags of maize meal and rotting wors wrapped in sleeping bags and thick plastic bags. Magudumana’s brother, Nkosinathi Sekeleni, has told TimesLIVE he was shocked to hear his sister allegedly claimed a dead person was him.
Sources in the police and Free State health department, as well as members of the provincial funeral community, have provided TimesLIVE with details of the ruse that apparently even included a fake burial ceremony attended by “mourners”.
The plot was exposed when the coffins were dug up after Bester's escape.
The contents [of the coffins] were wrapped in such a way that they resembled bodies. Where a head is meant to be, the contents were shaped like a head, the torsos were the same. When they opened [everything] they found wors in one coffin and packs of maize meal in the other.
— Source based at the Mangaung government mortuary
“The contents [of the coffins] were wrapped in such a way that they resembled bodies. Where a head is meant to be, the contents were shaped like a head, the torsos were the same. When they opened [everything] they found wors in one coffin and packs of maize meal in the other,” a source based at the Mangaung government mortuary told TimesLIVE Investigations.
While many questions remain around her actions, it is alleged that Magudumana stole three bodies. Whose bodies is not yet clear, but she allegedly claimed that two of the bodies were her brother and father. This happened in the weeks running up to Bester's escape, in which he left a charred body in his prison cell after pretending to have committed suicide by setting his mattress alight.
That body is believed to have been cremated, while the other two bodies were claimed and then “buried”. One of them was later found in a river in Bloemfontein. It is not known what happened to the third body.
Last week the Sunday Times reported that Magudumana, who is charged with murder, fraud and aiding and abetting an escape, was being investigated by organised-crime detectives for fraudulently laying claim to three unidentified bodies ahead of Bester's May 3 2022 bolt for freedom. It is not known exactly why she claimed so many bodies, but there has been speculation that it happened at the same time a first escape attempt by Bester failed.
It is believed Magudumana told state mortuary officials that the two bodies, which she claimed on different days, were those of her brother, Nkosinathi Sekeleni, and father, Cornelius Sekeleni, a truck driver who had gone missing.
TimesLIVE has seen photographs taken inside the Mangaung state mortuary of the maize meal and wors.
In one photograph, in which a mortuary official can be seen with a clip board, are three 10kg white and green Super Maize Meal bags lying on an opened blue sleeping bag. In another, rotting wors is visible in torn open plastic bags lying on top of an opened red and black sleeping bag.
Police spokesperson Brig Athlenda Mathe declined to comment.
A source based at the Mangaung government mortuary, told TimesLIVE Investigations, that a tip-off was received that there were inconsistencies with the bodies Magudumana had claimed from them for burial.
“The inconsistencies were that the coffins did not hold the bodies [which we released to her]. The reports were that those inside the coffins were not those Magudumana claimed as her dead relatives.”
The source, who cannot be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media, said the police were called and together with forensic specialists exhumed two graves where the coffins were buried.
He said the coffins were returned to the mortuary where they were opened and the contents removed. This was when the unexpected discoveries were made.
He said the coffins were buried at cemeteries outside Mangaung.
TimesLIVE Investigations has learnt the burials were conducted by Thusano Funerals.
Thusano Funerals CEO Chrismari Stone said: “The police handled the exhumations with forensics. We were not present.”
Asked about Magudumana requesting the company to conduct the burials, she said could not comment. “It is an ongoing investigation.”
A source with knowledge of the SAPS investigation into the bogus burials said that information the detectives had showed that Thusano Funerals had been conned.
“There were actual bodies that were brought into the funeral parlour. She had claimed them in April, a couple of weeks apart from the government mortuary.
“The funerals were on different days. But on both occasions, the bodies were washed and prepared by the parlour staff and then transported to the so-called family home in Mangaung for the traditional prayer ceremonies.”
He said at the home on both occasions the bodies were taken inside with the family “preparing them for burial”.
“The undertakers could not enter. It is here the switches with the maize and wors apparently happened. If you were there you would think it was a legitimate funeral. There were people at the house paying their respects, people outside crying. The ‘bodies’ were then taken to the cemeteries, where they were buried.
Undertakers do not know what happens inside the family home once the body goes in for the prayers as they are not allowed in. It’s easy to see how the con happened
— Source
“It was only after the two funerals, and after Bester’s bogus 'suicide', that police came to Thusano offices in Bloemfontein and questioned the managers. It was then that the bodies were exhumed and the funerals were discovered to be bogus.”
He said one of the bodies that was meant to have been buried was found a week later in Bloemspruit dam, with its previous government mortuary tag still attached.
“Undertakers do not know what happens inside the family home once the body goes in for the prayers as they are not allowed in. It’s easy to see how the con happened.”
A police source said part of the probe into the bogus funerals was an investigation into claims that Magudumana had cashed in insurance policies.
“There are many aspects to this case. It’s highly complex, involving lots of people and corruption. It’s potentially not just government officials who helped make this escape happen.
“Detectives are looking at how Nandipha claimed the bodies, the haste she expressed in being given the bodies from the state mortuary and her insistence with the funeral parlour that the burials happen quickly.
“She was calling on things to be done which raised red flags.”
Magudumana’s brother, Nkosinathi, said the latest development was news to him.
“I don't know about it. I have only heard stuff on the news. I need to go to home affairs and check because there are two brothers, so I don't know who [she claimed was her brother],” he said.
“I was asking myself who the other bodies were [or who could she have claimed they were]. So this means that my ID number is compromised,” he said.
Sekeleni said he did not want to comment further about the details pertaining to his sister’s and father’s arrests.
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