A mother’s worst fears came true when police found her missing nine-year-old son’s body after he went to ask his stepbrother for R1 to buy ice pops.
The gruesome discovery was made early Thursday morning when a resident caught the 33-year-old suspect dragging a wrapped bundle towards a cemetery in Snake Park, near Nigel.
Little Nkosinathi Gqibathole went missing on Sunday evening after visiting his stepbrother’s shack in ArlaPark.
When the resident asked what was in the bundle, the suspect ran away. Inside, they found Nkosinathi’s partially burnt body wrapped in black plastic and a blanket.
His mother Zukiswa Gqibathole had been searching since Sunday night.
“On Monday we searched for him and one of the residents told me they saw him playing with other children. I hoped that he would return home but he didn’t. I reported a case of a missing person but because I didn’t have a picture of him the police couldn’t help me.
“They told me to blow a whistle for the community to help me,” she said.
The suspect then invited her to his shack on Tuesday.
“I didn’t suspect anything, he consoled me about my missing son. I was surprised when he harshly blocked me from disposing of rubbish behind his shack.”
“There were a lot of flies coming from that direction but I didn’t think much about it. Police found a shallow grave behind his shack,” she said.
Zukiswa is devastated by the betrayal. “He loved my children as their brother, I even defended him when the community pointed him out as a killer,” she said.
Police spokesperson Colonel Dimakatso Nevhuhulwi said the suspect will appear in the Nigel Magistrates Court on 9 December for murder.
