The tale of two mothers

The one, lost her partner and father to her children at the hands of the other’s son, who was sent to jail for life, trusting the country’s socio-economic ills into the limelight once again.

Mrs Marietjie du Toit and Ms Emily Makula’s backgrounds are starkly different, though one glaring similarity exists between them in the fact that both’s families were destroyed on the Spring night of 18 September 2012.

A dying man, in a pool of blood, brought them together in court.

The state called Mrs Marietjie du Toit, whose ear was hacked in half in the brazen attack, in which her husband was killed before her eyes, to testify in aggravation of sentence on Tuesday.

She said that since the murder of her husband of 23-years, Mr Jan du Toit, she had to sell the house and move in with her kids, who she now has to sponge off to survive.

She’s been placed on anti-depressants and medication for acute post traumatic stress disorder, which costs her around R1800 per month without medical aid.

Her only income is a state pension of R1300, and the financial assistance from her three children.

Her husband, Jan, was killed in a brazen house-breaking on 18 September 2012.

The man who did it, Thabang Mohlala (26), Emily Makula’s eldest child of four.

The defense did not call on anyone to testify in mitigation of sentence, but justice Makume noted Thabang Mohlala’s mother, Ms Makula, in the gallery, and called her to the stand.

She said that he left school after Grade nine, but promised her to return, which he never did.

Ms Makula testified that she believes that he got involved with crime and drugs because she was an absent mother for four years, leaving home to seek employment and earn an income.

Her sister and parents looked after the children in her absence.

None of them know where Mohlala’s father is, as he walked out on them when Mohlala was 15 years and never returned.

She said that after his arrest in Springs, while on the run after Mr Du Toit’s murder, he phoned her from jail to call the investigating officer, sergeant Maile Lekgeng, to inform him where he was.

•Mohlala was sentenced to life behind bars for the murder, and an additional 15-years for house-breaking, which will run concurrent with all his previous sentences of 19-years for murder and theft.