A Queenstown man who went on a murderous rampage during which he killed two people, including an elderly woman he said he believed was “a witch”, has been sentenced to life imprisonment.
Yolando Lerumo was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Nonqambu Nyewe, 75, and 15 years’ jail for the murder of Zingisa Mqhele.
He was sentenced to another eight years for housebreaking with intent to commit murder and three years for contravening the Suppression of Witchcraft Act after he named a second woman as a witch.
The sentences will run concurrently.
Judge John Smith rejected a precedent-setting judgment suggesting that belief in witchcraft could be a mitigating factor and instead ruled that it was an aggravating one.
The Daily Dispatch recently exposed just how widespread witchcraft-related attacks were in the Eastern Cape, particularly in the former rural Transkei where dozens of women have been murdered in the name of witchcraft over the past few years.
Lerumo had pleaded guilty.
The killings began in a tavern where he stabbed a man to death with a blade from sheep shears in an argument over a pool game.
On his way home he spotted Nyewe, who he said he believed to be a witch, and decided to kill her. He said he believed she had bewitched him into killing Mqhele.
Nyewe had locked herself in her house but he had smashed the windows and the door.
He stabbed her more than 20 times. Eight of the wounds were individually fatal, severing arteries and penetrating her heart and lungs.
He then attempted to break into a home nearby to kill a second woman he believed had collaborated with Nyewe. He had broken a window to get in but fled after being confronted by a man armed with a stick.
Lerumo said in his plea statement he was angry and under the influence of alcohol but knew what he was doing was wrong.
Smith said there were no substantial or compelling reasons warranting a lesser sentence.
Life in jail for murder of elderly woman
Yolando Lerumo was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of Nonqambu Nyewe, 75, and 15 years’ jail for the murder of Zingisa Mqhele.
He was sentenced to another eight years for housebreaking with intent to commit murder and three years for contravening the Suppression of Witchcraft Act after he named a second woman as a witch.
The sentences will run concurrently.
Judge John Smith rejected a precedent-setting judgment suggesting that belief in witchcraft could be a mitigating factor and instead ruled that it was an aggravating one.
The Daily Dispatch recently exposed just how widespread witchcraft-related attacks were in the Eastern Cape, particularly in the former rural Transkei where dozens of women have been murdered in the name of witchcraft over the past few years.
Lerumo had pleaded guilty.
The killings began in a tavern where he stabbed a man to death with a blade from sheep shears in an argument over a pool game.
On his way home he spotted Nyewe, who he said he believed to be a witch, and decided to kill her. He said he believed she had bewitched him into killing Mqhele.
Nyewe had locked herself in her house but he had smashed the windows and the door.
He stabbed her more than 20 times. Eight of the wounds were individually fatal, severing arteries and penetrating her heart and lungs.
He then attempted to break into a home nearby to kill a second woman he believed had collaborated with Nyewe. He had broken a window to get in but fled after being confronted by a man armed with a stick.
Lerumo said in his plea statement he was angry and under the influence of alcohol but knew what he was doing was wrong.
Smith said there were no substantial or compelling reasons warranting a lesser sentence.
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