By Levy Masiteng
Police are awaiting forensic results on blood-stained items and clothing recovered at Mooifontein Cemetery in Tembisa to establish whether the evidence can be linked to a 36-year-old man arrested in connection with the murder of Ntombifuthi Nxumalo.
Gauteng police commissioner Lieutenant General Tommy Mthombeni said the evidence had been submitted for forensic analysis after Nxumalo was found with severe head injuries at the cemetery in the Vusimusi section of Tembisa on Saturday.
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The results could strengthen the case against the suspect, who was tracked from Tembisa to Mohlabaneng village near Tzaneen in Limpopo and arrested later the same day.
Police have not linked the man to any of the other deaths being investigated across Ekurhuleni.
Nxumalo’s death forms part of a rapidly developing investigation in which 11 women have been found dead across Ekurhuleni since July.
Her body was discovered a day before another woman, believed to be in her early 20s, was found partially undressed in an open veld near Rhokana Road and a railway line in Struisbult, Springs.
Mthombeni said preliminary indications were that the Springs victim had been killed recently and may have been strangled.
“This body is not in a decomposed state. I can confirm that the body was found, not wholly clothed,” he said.
According to SAPS, preliminary investigations into Nxumalo’s death established that she had been drinking at a local tavern with a female acquaintance before leaving with an unidentified man.
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Residents near Mooifontein Cemetery later told investigators that they had heard a woman screaming and pleading for her life at around 11pm.
Investigators traced the man believed to have left the tavern with Nxumalo to an address in Tembisa, but established that he had travelled to Limpopo.
A multidisciplinary police team followed him to Mohlabaneng village, where he was arrested at around 11pm on Saturday.
The operation involved Tembisa South detectives, Ekurhuleni Crime Intelligence, SAPS Investigative Psychology Services, the Gauteng Local Criminal Record Centre and police officers in Limpopo.
Acting National Police Commissioner Lieutenant General Puleng Dimpane commended the officers involved in tracing the suspect on the same day Nxumalo’s body was discovered.
“I commend this multidisciplinary team for their swift response, coordination and determination, which resulted in the apprehension of the suspect on the same day,” Dimpane said.
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“This is the kind of policing we expect from our members.”
Police said stones were found around Nxumalo’s body, raising the possibility that she had been stoned. No visible stab wounds were detected at the scene.
Police have repeatedly cautioned that they have not established that all the women found dead across Ekurhuleni were killed by the same person or that all the cases are connected.
The latest discoveries have nevertheless intensified scrutiny of the police investigation.
The woman found in Springs on Sunday became the 11th woman whose body has been discovered across Ekurhuleni since July.
Police have made arrests in other individual cases.
Two women have been charged in connection with the murder of Jabulile Ntimba, whose body was found near Dawn Park on 17 September. Police suspect Ntimba’s death may have been due to a love triangle. The formal bail application of the two suspects is scheduled for Thursday.
