Murder charges against an elderly couple accused of killing five children at Molomini reserve near Msinga (Tugela Ferry) last month were withdrawn in the town’s Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.
Pietermaritzburg’s chief prosecutor, advocate Andrew Loubscher, said charges were withdrawn against Mabona Ngcobo (70) and his wife, Gwilile (65), ”because there was insufficient evidence to proceed with the prosecution”.
Loubscher said: ”They have not been acquitted. Obviously, investigations will continue and we are still awaiting results of tests and results.
”Depending on the availability of evidence … we may reconsider, but at this stage there is not sufficient evidence to continue with the case.”
The couple was arrested two weeks ago after the children’s bodies were found in an abandoned car at the couple’s home. The badly decomposed bodies had blisters on them.
Last Friday, the preliminary post-mortem on the children showed they were not killed for muti, as had been speculated.
KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Superintendent Vish Naidoo said the actual cause of death of the children has not yet been established.
”Toxicology tests have been conducted on the children and we are awaiting the results.
”According to the [post-mortem] report and contrary to unfounded speculation that the children were victims of a muti killing, it was established that the children had neither sustained any physical injuries or lacerations, nor were there any body parts missing from them,” he said.
The victims are three-year-old Sisanda Khanyile, his sister Nonzimelelo (5), and their friends Thabani Sokhela (5), Simiso Nhlangulela (3) and Lindeliwe Dladla (5).
The children were buried at a joint funeral last week.
Residents started looking for the children after they did not return home from play on January 22.
The couple’s home was in the meantime been burned by angry residents.
Meanwhile, Free State principal state pathologist Dr Robert Book has said that in his opinion, the children’s deaths displayed signs of hyperthermia.
”I have not seen any reports or photographs, but if the kids did not die of any injuries, and they were sitting in a car on a sunny day with closed doors and windows, it sounds to me like they may have died of heatstroke and dehydration.”
Book said pathologists would have to take a sample of fluid from the children’s eyes and look for a ”dehydration pattern, which you can see when looking for potassium and sodium levels to determine if the kids died of hyperthermia”. — Sapa