The three appellants were convicted in the Limpopo Local Division of the High Court of the murder of a four-year-old child, Tshilelo Sigovho, and sentenced to life imprisonment. The State alleged that the second appellant, the child’s mother, together with the first and third appellants, removed the child from the care of a neighbour, Ms Maphosa, and killed her in a ritual murder to harvest body parts for appeasing ancestral gods. The State’s case rested primarily on the evidence of Maphosa, a single witness, who claimed that the first appellant had spoken of the need for human body parts. There were no eyewitnesses to the murder. About a week after the child’s disappearance, skeletal remains consisting only of a skull and six ribs were found. A post-mortem report, admitted by consent, was inconclusive: the sex was recorded as probably male, the cause of death was undetermined, the time of death was estimated as four weeks or longer prior to examination, and DNA testing was not conducted. Significant inconsistencies existed regarding the date and identity of the remains. Another witness testified that he saw the child walking towards Maphosa’s house on the relevant night, which cast suspicion on Maphosa rather than the appellants.
The appeal was upheld and the appellants’ convictions and sentences of life imprisonment were set aside.
The case reinforces fundamental principles of South African criminal law and evidence, particularly the requirement that the State must prove every element of an offence beyond reasonable doubt, including the fact of death in a murder charge. It also reaffirms the cautious approach required when dealing with single-witness testimony under section 208 of the Criminal Procedure Act and highlights the dangers of relying on unreliable or self-interested witnesses.