INSIDE HOW LITTLE GIRL WAS KILLED
➤ The deceased 4-year-old’s parents broke up because of the killer woman ➤ The child’s mother now has lost two children belonging to the same father ➤ Child’s father not aware ‘step mom’ had been abusing the little girl
Ntshediseng Khohliwe (23) of Siviya village is finding it hard to come to terms with the brutal killing of her four-year-old daughter who was allegedly murdered by her baby daddy’s lover Mpho Tebogo last week in Tonota. Tebogo appeared before Francistown magistrate court on Friday facing a single count of murder and was remanded in custody.
“I am very sad. I wonder why she had to kill my daughter on her birthday (28th April). My heart is in pain. To this day, I have not been given anything tangible to explain this cruel act,” Khohliwe said when speaking to The Midweek Sun this week. All that Khohliwe has been told is that 22-year-old Tebogo is suspected to have been abusing her child, and that this time, she took it a bit far leading to the child dying. “I hear she hit her against the wall. I am even angrier at my ex-boyfriend as the father of our child. He had a responsibility to protect my child from his girlfriend’s claws but he did not,” Khohliwe fumed.
What breaks her heart even more is that the community is now judging and labelling her as an irresponsible mother and wonder why she left such a young child to the care of a stranger. “The father came to me in January pleading that I give him time with our child as he misses her. I knew he was entitled to see his child.
“I had no right to say no to him. Also I knew his family would assist with taking care of the baby, it was not going to be his sole responsibility. I felt she would be in good hands. And that is how he took her to Tonota,” she said. Little did she know that baby daddy, Frank Makolo (24), had moved out of his family home and was now cohabiting with his girlfriend, Tebogo. Khohliwe and Tebogo had met before and never saw eye to eye. This was the same woman who dated her man at a time when she (Khohliwe) had just lost her month-old baby boy back in 2018. “I was devastated, it was our second born with Makolo and I thought we were in mourning. But he left
me and went on to impregnate Tebogo. “They now have a boy child. At that time, it felt like Tebogo’s child was replacing mine. But I made peace with it,” Khohliwe said. Now she is all alone. “Both my children are now dead, the pain is unbearable, my heart is aching,” she said. For his part, Makolo said he had no answers. “There is a buzz out there about this issue. I have not slept a wink. Everyone is demanding answers from me but I have none. I never knew Tebogo was capable of this,” he said. Makolo admitted that he often found his daughter with scratches and when he questioned Tebogo about it, she dismissed it as harmless. “I was concerned and ordered her to stop beating her. It is only now that I am hearing from neighbours that she had moved from using a stick (cane) on her to beating her up using fists,” he said. “I was not aware that she abused my child on a daily basis but neighbours say she beat her every chance she got. On the day she died, I was called by both Tebogo and the landlord saying my child was not feeling well.” When he arrived home, four-year old Ashanti Khohliwe had foam-like substance coming out of her small mouth. Tebogo then told him the little girl had been vomiting and she had collapsed on her own. When they arrived at Tonota Clinic, Tebogo shocked him by saying to the nurses, ‘Please go and collect a corpse from the car!’ “I asked her why she would say something like that and she claimed that the elders had hinted that my daughter was no more. “The baby was rushed to Nyangabgwe Hospital in Francistown where she was certified dead. The police then came and took Tebogo away saying she is a suspect in a murder case. I was left speechless,” Makolo narrated. Makolo is now stuck in a very difficult position. There is much explaining required from him to do. The woman he loved is in jail for allegedly killing his daughter.
She is not just a woman to him but also the mother of their one-year old son.