Themba MTHOMBENI

Classification: Murderer
Characteristics: Necrophile
Number of victims: 2
Date of murders: July 2002 / January 2003
Date of birth: 1982
Victims profile: A policeman / Thandiwe Masimula, 18
Method of murder: Shooting
Location: Mhluzi, Middelburg, Mpumalanga, South Africa
Status: Sentenced to life in prison on June 26, 2006

Necrophiliac sentenced to life in prison

Pretoria News

June 27, 2006

A Witbank engineering student who shot dead a 17-year-old childhood friend when she refused to have sex with him was on Monday sentenced to life imprisonment.

Themba Mthombeni was given a life sentence plus 15 years in prison on charges of murder, abduction, violating a body, attempted rape and the unlawful possession of a firearm.

Pretoria High Court Judge Mahomed Ismail said the court could not be blinded by Themba Mthombeni's youth or feel sorry for him.

"I am perplexed why a person with so much potential would resort to such horrible crimes.

"The manner in which you acted cannot be tolerated. A human life was taken as a result of your actions. Society cannot condone or tolerate this type of conduct where people resort to violence for the slightest excuse or provocation," said Ismail.

Emotional family members wept and had to be consoled. They sat in silence in court for several minutes after hearing Mthombeni was going to jail for at least the next 25 years.

Mthombeni earlier admitted that in April 2003 he had forced Thandiwe Masimula, 17, to accompany him to his dormitory room at gunpoint. He shot her in the neck when she refused to have sex with him, before raping her.

After locking her body in his room, he went in search of other victims to rape. He pointed a firearm at two school teachers who passed him in the street with the intention of raping them as well. He fled after one of them sprayed him with mace.

He later returned to Thandiwe's room, where he tried to rape her room-mate, but fled when her screams alerted a neighbour. His young victim's decomposing body was found in his room several days later. Ismail earlier referred to the crimes as "glaringly heinous".

Man up for murder, necrophilia

News24.com

September 22, 2003

Witbank - A young engineering student accused of killing a policeman and later raping and killing a girl and keeping her body in his bed for three days, appeared in the Pretoria regional court on Monday.

Themba Mthombeni, 21, from Mhluzi near Middelburg in Mpumalanga, has already pleaded guilty to the policeman's murder, saying he did so in self defence when the cop allegedly tried to sodomise him.

He also pleaded guilty to stealing the policeman's car, firearm and cellphone.

The policeman met Mthombeni in a bar and offered him a place to stay for the night after Mthombeni had been kicked out of his flat in Sunnyside, Pretoria, in July last year.

Mthombeni's case was scheduled for judgment on Monday, but the case was postponed to October 7 because his lawyer was ill.

Mthombeni is still on trial in the Witbank district court for the rape and murder of a first-year student in January this year.

Thandiwe Masimula, 18, was found shot dead in Mthombeni's bed in a block of flats in Witbank, Mpumalanga.

She'd been dead for three days.

Mthombeni faces charges of murder, rape, and necrophilia after he allegedly told police that he had sex with her after she had died.

He also faces charges of attempted rape involving Masimula's flatmate, and a charge of attempted murder and the possession of unlicensed firearm and ammunition after he allegedly confronted two joggers while fleeing after the flatmate screamed for help.

He remains in custody until his next appearance in the Witbank district court on September 29.