Suspect Drowns While Under Police Escort
PALAPYE: A Sefhare teenager, who was a suspect in a case in which a donkey was stolen and slaughtered, drowned in a sewerage pond in the village while attempting to escape from police custody last week.
This comes at a time when the area’s leadership reported dire hunger engulfing vulnerable community members. This also follows the recent national lockdown that was set to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19).
Recently, Sefhare/Ramokgonami legislator Kesitegile Gobotswang and a couple of councillors from the area spoke out to the media about issues of hunger within their communities.
Officer commanding Mahalapye police district, senior superintendent Rueben Mphoeng confirmed they were investigating the death and stocktheft matter associated with the incident.
According to his report, the 18-year-old male was apprehended on Wednesday for his part in an alleged slaughter of a stolen donkey in the bushes at the fenced Sefhare Primary Hospital sewerage ponds.
He allegedly commissioned the offence with two others who were arrested a day later and are held in custody and assisting the police with investigations.
The police were acting on a tip-off from some villagers when they made the arrests.
According to Mphoeng, some residents who live nearby the sewerage ponds allegedly caught the trio in action while they were busy slicing and drying the meat in the bushes.
The residents were alerted to the alleged crime by the unusual noises emanating from the fenced sewerage thicket that was rarely trespassed.
Upon being discovered the trio fled the scene and the residents managed to identify the now deceased suspect.
The matter was reported to the police and he was arrested on the same day. Following preliminary interrogation with the deceased, he led the police to the scene to gather evidence.
To get to the crime scene the police and suspect went past the empty ponds to access the area, but when they were about to go past a filled up pond the cuffed suspect dived in. Attempts were made by the police to rescue the suspect but he drowned and never resurfaced. Mphoeng said they did not know what could have led the suspect to take such action.
Police scuba divers based in Gaborone were called in to assist in finding of the suspect. When they arrived, it was already late in the evening and a search could not be carried out. The search was subsequently carried out the next morning and the lifeless body of the suspect was retrieved from the same sewerage pond.
The deceased was kept at Sefhare Primary Hospital mortuary before being transported to Gaborone for a post-mortem examination by pathologists.
The police senior superintendent said the other incarcerated suspects were helping in the investigation. He said they discovered evidence at the scene of the crime near the pond.
“We don’t know what could have happened with the suspect at that moment (when he jumped into the pond). We later discovered the donkey hide and dried up meat on the trees in the bushes a few metres from the pond,” Mphoeng said.