Victims in Thabo Bester saga deserve closure

It has finally been revealed that the body found in convicted rapist and murderer Thabo Bester’s cell in the Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein on May 3 belonged to 31-year-old Katlego Mpholo. South Africans have been enthralled with the Bester saga in recent weeks, with each detail emerging more shocking. For a family that has been searching desperately for their son for more than a year, the news is devastating.

City Press reported yesterday that Mpholo’s father, Batho Mpholo, had received the call on Saturday informing him that the body Bester used to fake his death and escape prison belonged to his son.

Batho told the Sunday newspaper that the call had left him numb. He said his son, who had regularly posted on social media, had gone quiet in about April 2022 and a missing person’s case had been opened with the police in mid-May.

It was only until about a week ago that the Bloemfontein police are said to have contacted the family to conduct a DNA test. The results were finally disclosed to the family on Saturday. Though this brings finality to their search for their son, there are still many unanswered questions for the family, which makes closure difficult.

Though the police told Batho that his son had overdosed on drugs and landed up at a state mortuary, the family, rightfully, are demanding to know how his body ended up in Bester’s cell.

Reports have indicated that it was Bester’s partner, Dr Nandipha Magudumana, who claimed bodies from state mortuaries to carry out the elaborate escape plan, but how it all unfolded is yet to be revealed.

The case is before the courts and more details will surely come to light, but it does not make this mourning period any easier for the family.

They deserve answers, as do the rest of the SA public, and they deserve to see everyone who helped Bester carry out his escape put behind bars.

From correctional services to the police and G4S staff members, they all need to account for this saga, including the allegations that Bester often checked out of jail at weekends to spend time with Magudumana in hotels.

It is only when everything is revealed and the perpetrators are behind bars that the Mpholo family may get the closure they desperately yearn for.