A man who allegedly shot and killed three people during a dispute over an electricity bill was killed by the police near Pietermaritzburg on Wednesday morning, KwaZulu-Natal police said.
Rodney Gxubane, who allegedly killed his landlord, the landlord’s daughter and a boyfriend of another of the landlord’s daughters last month was shot dead by members of the Serious and Violent Crimes Unit (SVU) in Sweetwaters near Pietermaritzburg.
Director Johan Booysen, head of the unit, said Gxubane’s pregnant wife and seven children had been located by police in the Highflats area on the KwaZulu-Natal South Coast in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Later in the morning they were searching houses in the Sweetwaters area of Pietermaritzburg when Gxubane was found. A shoot-out between SVU officers and Gxubane ensued as he resisted arrest. He was fatally wounded.
Gxubane and his family were renting a flat at the back of Thomas Manuel’s house in Merebank, when he apparently accused the family of switching off his electricity supply. During the alleged dispute on June 4 Gxubane shot and killed Manuel (50) his daughter Tarani (22) and Sershin Naidoo, the boyfriend of his older daughter Maylene.
Maylene Manuel (25) and Manuel’s wife Priscilla were critically wounded in the attack. Gxubane then put his wife and seven children into their car and dove off.
During the past few weeks police have been lambasted in the local media by family members and the Merebank Residents’ Association for the lack of progress made in the case. – Sapa