Hlabirwa Rassie Nkuna was convicted in two separate cases of four killings carried out in 2022, and he is charged with two more. In May 2023 the Mpumalanga High Court sentenced him to two terms of life imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to the premeditated murder of two sisters, Pretty and Marcia Mazibuko, in KaNyamazane. In June 2026 the Pretoria High Court convicted him, together with a former police officer, Jacob Chego, of the premeditated murder of Lucky and Sabeliwe Mogashoa, a married couple, in March 2022, and on September 2, 2026 both men were sentenced to life imprisonment. He has not been tried for the deaths of Hillary Gardee, aged 28, and Nonkululeko Nkosi, aged 27, which are the subject of murder charges set down for trial in the Mpumalanga High Court in 2027.
When he was arrested in August 2022 none of the cases against him had reached a court. Verdicts have since been given in two of them; the third has yet to be heard.
Nkuna's full name is Hlabirwa Rassie Nkuna. He was 36 when he was arrested in 2022.
Pretty Mazibuko and her sister Marcia Mazibuko lived in the KaNyamazane area outside Mbombela, formerly Nelspruit, in Mpumalanga. One of the sisters had been Nkuna's girlfriend, and one of them was a police officer. The two were killed on May 15, 2022. The courts dealt with the two killings together.
Prosecutors charged Nkuna with two counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder. The attempted murder charges were withdrawn by the state before the sentence.
By August 2022 three men were already in custody in Mpumalanga over the killing of Hillary Gardee, a 28-year-old woman who died in April 2022. Nkuna was the fourth man arrested in connection with that case. A team of police from Gauteng and Mpumalanga arrested him on August 11, 2022 in KwaThema, near Springs.
Nkuna appeared first in the Delmas Magistrate's Court on August 15 on charges of kidnapping, robbery with aggravating circumstances, murder and another count. The murder charge related to Nonkululeko Nkosi, who was 27. He declined to apply for bail and was kept in custody. On August 16 he appeared in the KaNyamazane Magistrate's Court on the charges of killing the two sisters. On August 25 he appeared in the Nelspruit Magistrate's Court as the fourth accused in the Gardee matter; the hearing lasted about five minutes and was postponed to September 9, when he was due to join the three co-accused. The Gardee case was later transferred from the magistrate's court to the Mpumalanga High Court in Mbombela, where the charges against him included conspiracy to commit murder, murder, kidnapping and defeating the ends of justice, with other counts.
The trial in the sisters' case opened in the Mpumalanga High Court on Monday May 15, 2023 before Judge Takalani Vincent Ratshibvumo. On Tuesday May 16 Nkuna pleaded guilty through a statement read by his legal representative. In it he admitted that he had acted unlawfully and intended to kill both women, said he knew that his conduct was punishable by law, and expressed remorse, asking forgiveness from the Mazibuko family, the community and the court.
The prosecution was not satisfied that the plea reflected everything that had happened in the death of the first sister, Pretty Mazibuko, and the court entered a plea of not guilty on that count under section 113 of the Criminal Procedure Act. The trial therefore continued on the count despite the admission, and a neighbour of the sisters gave evidence, which the judge referred to when he delivered his verdict. The court found Nkuna guilty of two counts of premeditated murder.
On Wednesday May 17 the prosecutor, Advocate Zwelethu Mata, placed before the court a victim impact statement compiled by a court preparation officer, Nomfundo Mokoena. On Thursday May 18 the judge imposed two terms of life imprisonment, one for each murder. He said that Nkuna had given no genuine reason for the killings in his plea statement and that the court would not tolerate crimes against women.
The spokesperson for the National Prosecuting Authority in Mpumalanga, Monica Nyuswa, said that the case showed the problem of gender-based violence and the rising number of killings of police officers, and that she hoped the sentence would deter others.
Hillary Gardee, 28, was killed in April 2022, and the Mpumalanga police made their first arrests in the case in May. Nkuna was the fourth man charged. Three other men were charged in the same case.
The case was to open in the Mpumalanga High Court in Mbombela on April 12, 2023, before the Judge President, Francis Legodi. On the day before, the defense for three of the men had asked for a postponement so that they could make representations to the Director of Public Prosecutions to withdraw their clients' charges; the judge refused and the state said it was ready. On April 12, however, the state told the court that three witnesses who had been due to testify were no longer available, and the charges against all four men were provisionally withdrawn. The court recorded that the accused had not been acquitted. Prosecutors said afterwards that the case would be reinstated once the witnesses were traced.
In July 2025 the prosecuting authority revived the case against Nkuna. He made his first appearance in the Mbombela High Court, and the matter was transferred to the Mpumalanga High Court, with a trial date of October 31. The trial then opened earlier, on Monday October 20, 2025, and was postponed to allow the defense to consult with the accused. On October 24 it was postponed again because Nkuna had asked his attorney to withdraw and Legal Aid South Africa had to appoint a new representative; the case was moved to October 28.
At a pre-trial conference on December 12, 2025 the state said it was ready, and the court certified the matter as trial-ready. The charges before the court are two counts of murder, those of Hillary Gardee and Nonkululeko Nkosi, three counts of kidnapping, robbery with aggravating circumstances, and other counts. The trial is set for April 26 to May 28, 2027, and the defense said it would consult with Nkuna before it begins. Nkuna has not been convicted of either death.
The March 2022 deaths of Lucky and Sabeliwe Mogashoa took place at Etwatwa, in the Ekurhuleni district of the East Rand, in Gauteng. They were a married couple.
Nkuna was charged with the Mogashoa deaths while he was already in custody and serving the Mpumalanga sentence. Jacob Mothibe Chego, then a member of a police vehicle crime investigation unit at White River, handed himself over to police at Springs on April 16, 2024 together with another man. Chego was arrested and later released on bail. The case was tried in the Pretoria High Court, where Nkuna and Chego pleaded not guilty. The state's case was led by Advocate Tholoana Sekhonyana.
In June 2026 the court convicted Nkuna of two counts of premeditated murder, two counts of conspiracy to commit murder, four counts of kidnapping, fraud, defeating the ends of justice and two counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances. Chego was convicted of the same offenses except the robbery counts. A regional spokesperson for the prosecuting authority, Lumka Mahanjana, commented on the verdict on June 24. Chego had been dismissed from the police service.
Judge Samuel Makamu sentenced both men on Wednesday September 2, 2026. Nkuna received four terms of life imprisonment for the murders and the conspiracy to commit them, five years for kidnapping and 15 years for robbery with aggravating circumstances; Chego, convicted on the same counts apart from the robbery, was also sentenced to life imprisonment. The police spokesperson, Athlenda Mathe, said no sentence could bring back the couple.
In South Africa the High Court's discretion over the sentence for certain murders is limited by statute. Section 51 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997 prescribes life imprisonment in the High Court for the most serious category of murder, including premeditated murder, unless the court finds "substantial and compelling circumstances" that justify a lesser sentence and records them (section 51(3)(a)). The Supreme Court of Appeal explained the provision in S v Malgas, decided on March 19, 2001: the prescribed sentence is to be treated as the ordinarily appropriate one, departed from only for weighty reasons, and the circumstances are weighed together as one test, without any requirement that they be exceptional. In that case the court reduced a life sentence to 25 years because of the accused's youth, clean record and cooperation.
Both of Nkuna's life sentences were imposed on verdicts of premeditated murder.
The deaths of Hillary Gardee and Nonkululeko Nkosi remain allegations. Nkuna has not been tried on either count, and the Mpumalanga High Court has not made any finding about them. When the first Gardee proceedings ended in April 2023 the court stated that none of the four accused had been acquitted. The prosecution has since been revived against Nkuna alone.
March 2022: Lucky and Sabeliwe Mogashoa die at Etwatwa, Ekurhuleni.
April 2022: Hillary Gardee, 28, is killed near Mbombela.
May 15, 2022: Pretty and Marcia Mazibuko die in KaNyamazane.
July 2022: Nonkululeko Nkosi, 27, dies in Sundra.
August 11, 2022: Nkuna is arrested in KwaThema, Springs.
15, 16 and August 25, 2022: first appearances at Delmas, KaNyamazane and Nelspruit.
April 12, 2023: charges in the Gardee case provisionally withdrawn.
15 to May 16, 2023: sisters' trial opens; guilty plea; verdict of two counts of premeditated murder.
May 18, 2023: two terms of life imprisonment.
April 16, 2024: Chego and a third man hand themselves over to police at Springs.
July 2025: Gardee case revived against Nkuna.
20 to October 24, 2025: trial opens and is postponed twice.
December 12, 2025: certified trial-ready; trial set for April to May 2027.
June 2026: Pretoria High Court convicts Nkuna and Chego in the Mogashoa case.
September 2, 2026: life imprisonment for both men.
April 26 to May 28, 2027: scheduled trial on the Gardee and Nkosi charges.