A year after his daughter died during a bizarre "exorcism", a KZN man has married a woman charged with her murder.
|||Durban - A year after his teenage daughter died during a bizarre “exorcism”, a south Durban man has married a woman charged with her murder.
Sinethemba Dlamini, 15, was found dead at her uMlazi J-section home in March last year. Her body had been disembowelled and her intestines were found lying next to her.
Four of her relatives – Fundiswa Faku, 29, Lindelwa Jalubane, 38, and her 18-year-old daughter, Nokubonga, as well as a 15-year-old who cannot be named because she is a minor – were charged with the murder. They have pleaded not guilty and were released on R500 bail last year, while the minor was released into the care of her father.
The accused claimed the teen had been possessed.
A fifth accused, Nonhlanhla Mdletshe, 22, walked down the aisle with Sinethemba’s father, Ntsikelelo Faku, at a community hall in uMlazi’s Q-section on Saturday.
Last year in court during the bail application, the investigating officer, Warrant officer Alex Gumede, said the accused had been praying for the teen because they believed she had been possessed by demons and they wanted her to give them “the code” to rid her of the demons.
Gumede said the accused also believed Sinethemba had infected Faku with the demons. When contacted by the Daily News on Monday night, Faku, of Adams Mission, said he had “nothing to say”.
Sinethemba’s grandmother, Nokulunga Dlamini, said the family were sad to learn that Faku had married one of the people accused of murdering his daughter.
Dlamini said Sinethemba had lived with her in Chesterville before her father asked if she could live with him at the beginning of last year.
Sinethemba moved from her granny’s house on January 7 last year and died two months later.
“Sometimes I do think that if I had not allowed her to move, maybe she would still be alive today,” she said.
Since the teen’s death, Dlamini said, she had had no contact with Faku.
On Monday one of the accused, Nokubonga Jalubane, posted a message on her Facebook wall asking for spiritual guidance.
Before this she had posted, “lord plz be wit me en my family
...”, followed in Zulu by a sentence that can be translated as: “We need you in this hard time. On Monday it was beautiful and we were happy and today our hearts have been hurt, Lord Jesus be with us, we trust you with our lives”.
Zulu language newspaper, Isolezwe, on Monday published a report on Faku’s wedding.
Nokubonga also posted pictures of her uncle’s wedding on her page.
Nokubonga told the Daily News she was not sure whether her uncle was in the right emotional state to want to comment.
The trial of the five accused is due to begin in the Durban High Court on June 3.
anelisa.kubheka@inl.co.za
Daily News