I Don't Think I'll Ever Forgive Him

The aunt of a man who beheaded his siblings in a satanic ritual says the family is struggling to find closure

- Siya Tsewu

THE modest house in Roo­depoort, Johannesburg, shows no sign of the hor­rors that unfolded when he slaughtered his siblings in cold blood, hacking off their heads as part of an offering to the devil.

The family inside is grieving the loss of their dead children as well as their lost son – a man they remember as a sweet, normal boy, until he embraced Satanism and murdered his brother and sister.

Why on earth did he do it, the Mashao family keep asking themselves.

It was the devil’s work, claims David Mathabatha Mashao (27), who is spend­ing the rest of his life behind bars for the savage murders of his siblings, Sechaba and Barbara.

He was “possessed” when the murders were committed, six years apart, in 2012 and 2018, his lawyer told the court at his recent trial.

“My deceased sister and my deceased brother were against my religious Satan­ ism beliefs and I then planned to kill them in a sacrifice to my Satanic reli­gion,” read his chilling plea statement.

The killer’s aunt, Lebo Mothle (59), stares out of the large window of her living room in Atteridgeville, Pretoria, her eyes unfocused as she recounts the horror that spread through her family like a cancer.

“We have still not come to terms with what has happened. My brother, Ruby, the children’s father, has not recovered,” she says.

Her voice is devoid of emotion. Her nephew, Sechaba (21), was in matric when he disappeared in 2012. The family was distraught, and for four weeks his dad searched high and low for him.

“Mathabatha told his father he did not know where his brother was,” Lebo recalls.

“Ruby went to hospitals, mortuaries and even prisons looking for his son, but he could not find him. Eventually, he found him at a mortuary, with other unidentified bodies.”