A man believed to have killed his wife, the principal of Asha Pre-School in Mapetla, Soweto, committed suicide at the Moroka police station while about to hand himself in, Soweto police said on Thursday.
Captain Mbazima Shiburi said a journalist who was accompanying Steve Nkone, Daily Sun assistant editor Themba Khumalo, was shot in the arm during the incident.
Khumalo was at the station with the paper’s lawyers and a colleague.
”We received a phone call from a journalist yesterday [Wednesday], saying the newspaper had been in contact with the suspect and that he wanted to hand himself to the police today [Thursday],” said Shiburi.
”While waiting at Moroka police station for the man to arrive, we suddenly heard two gunshots outside the station and ran out to investigate.”
Just a few metres from the entrance of the station commander’s office, police found Nkone ”lying in a pool of blood”.
”He had sustained two gunshots to the left side of his chest, but was still breathing when we got to him. The gun he had used was lying next to him.”
Shiburi said paramedics declared the man dead when they arrived at the scene.
Shiburi said it appeared Khumalo had been walking behind the suspect when a bullet went through Nkone, hitting him in the arm.
Daily Sun publisher Deon du Plessis said Khumalo is expected to be discharged from hospital on Friday. He sustained a flesh wound.
Du Plessis said the newspaper’s lawyers had accompanied Khumalo in order to ”safeguard the interests of the paper”.
On Thursday, the Daily Sun published the suspect’s confession to the murder on its front page.
In the story, Nkone (52) is quoted as saying he killed his 49-year-old former wife, Nthabiseng, for being ”greedy,” saying she had refused a R20 000 offer he had made to her as part of their divorce settlement. He said Nthabiseng wanted R35 000.
He said he feared that in order to raise that much money, he would have had to sell the house he inherited from his parents.
”She was always telling me about her rights as a woman. These included her right to sell my family house,” Nkone told the newspaper. ”And the government always listens to the women.”
The newspaper said the couple had been separated for eight years and divorced for the past two.
Nkone shot his wife twice, in the back of her head and in her right shoulder, in her office on Tuesday. — Sapa