Harrowing tale of jealousy and death

Former con insists he is not benefiting from book

AFORMER Cape Town newspaper editor has penned a book about how he murdered his former fiancée in a jealous rage by stabbing her several times before swallowing rat poison in an effort to end his own life.

Whittlesea resident Mcebisi Ndama, 50, who edited City Vision community paper in the late nineties, was working for Adventist Drought and Relief Agency (ADRA) in his home-town of Ginsberg when he killed his 28year-old former fiancée and stabbed her suspected lover in the chest in 2008.

While he was serving seven of his 13-year sentence for murder and attempted murder at the Sada Correctional Centre in Whittlesea, he wrote the book which is called My True Confessions: The Story of Passion, Lies, Cheating, Murder, Prison and Remorse.

He claimed he is not profiting from sales of the book, which costs R150, and that it is rather a cautionary tale in which he implores other men not to abuse and murder women.

He spoke to the Saturday Dispatch as a means to observe the 16 Days of Activism for no Violence Against Women, which ends today.

“Women get raped and murdered every day and my message is to men who don’t understand women and kill them,” he said.

But Masimanyane Women’s Support Centre executive director Lesley-Ann Foster said even if Ndama was remorseful, the book was written from his perspective.

“It is still written from his perspective and he can’t say he is not benefiting from the book because he will get some financial gain and mileage from it.”

The book is a blow-by-blow account of the years leading up to the murder of a woman Ndama professed to love intensely and how his “obsession” with her led to him killing her after she broke up with him.

Ndama admitted he had been a decadent adulterer, a liar and a cheat who indulged in sexual fantasies behind the pulpit while preaching piously in church.

His hypocrisy extended to his relationship with the woman who worked as a state accountant at a police station in Whittlesea.

“I lied to her by not telling her my divorce decree had not yet come through yet and so our wedding was cancelled three days before the set date.”

The relationship deteriorated after this and she left him.

When he suspected she was romantically involved with a police officer, Ndama armed himself with a knife, broke into her room and awaited her return.

He watched from her room as the man and his former lover arrived together in a car before he plunged his knife into the policeman’s chest and stabbed her.

He then tried to stab himself in the heart before drinking the poison. He said he awoke in ICU filled with remorse.

Since he left jail last year, Ndama has embarked on a series of motivational talks at schools and churches and is planning to address prison inmates.

“I will tell them to be honest and not to hurt women. I loved her and miss her. I still can’t believe I did it. She didn’t have to die like that and I am very sorry.” — barbarah@dispatch.co.za