IT WAS ME

She was 15 when her family was shot in cold blood. Five years later she confessed to hiring the hitmen who gunned them down

- ROBYN LUCAS

GROWING up she was a pleasant child to be around – obedient and respectful towards her parents and a diligent churchgoer, filing into the pew each Sunday with her family.

So when her policeman father, mother, 22-year-old sister and six-year-old brother were murdered, sympathy flooded Onthatile Sebati’s way. Just 15 years old at the time, Onthatile seemed to have escaped with her life after being shot in the leg.

Police thought the shooting was the conduct of a gang and tried to find the perpetrators, but every lead ended in a dead end. The last person anyone suspected was Onthatile – so you can imagine the family’s shock when the young woman, now 21, recently came forward to confess to ordering the hit on her family.

She says she hired distant relatives Tumelo and Kagiso Mokone (both 23) to kill her family members and allegedly paid R100 000 from her inheritance from her parents into Tumelo’s account, investigating officer Colonel Isaac Tlhapi alleges.

Molefe Tholo (39), another cousin of Onthatile, says the rest of the family is battling to believe she would do something like this. “We are heartbroken,” he tells YOU. “But we can’t turn back time – what’s done is done. She’s saying she couldn’t live anymore with this guilt, but why wait five years to confess? She’s put us through hell.”