Renowned author’s killer handed 12 year sentence

THE family of the man convicted of killing award-winning Durban author Marie Thorpe was not in court yesterday when he was sentenced to 12 years imprisonment.

Twenty- five- year- old Olwethu Ngwenya’s sister, who still lives in the same block of flats in Umbilo where Thorpe lived and was murdered, refused to speak to the Daily News.

She told the building’s security guard she was not interested in speaking to the media and especially not about her brother.

Thorpe, 65, was a recluse who lived in the flat she once shared with her late husband.

All her relatives, except for her brother who lives in Johannesburg, are overseas and none of them attended the sentencing in the Durban High Court.

Her body was found on August 17, last year, by a care taker.

According to the building’s security guard, Thorpe’s flat had since been sold and both her neighbours, who lived on either side, also sold their flats.

Some of the remaining neighbours told the Daily News they still vividly remember the day in which Thorpe’s decomposed body was found.

“I knew the old lady. She stayed here for years. I got such a fright when I heard about her death last year.

“I wanted to move out, but I had nowhere to go,” said a neighbour who did not want to be named.

The guard said he knew Ngwenya’s family was curious to know the sentencing, but had been in their flat the entire day.

Ngwenya sat in the dock and listened attentively yesterday to Judge Jacqueline Henriques as she read out her decision.

She had sentenced him 12 years for the murder and two years for robbery.

The sentences would run concurrently.

Planned

The judge said she took into consideration the fact that the murder was not planned and the fact that Ngwenya had confessed to the killing.

This, she said, made a difference in the case and the kind of sentencing handed down.

Ngwenya last month confessed to the murder and pleaded with the court for mercy saying he never wanted to kill Thorpe as his intention was to steal some items to sell and buy drugs.

In his guilty plea, he told the court he was a whoonga addict and on the day of the murder he had gone out searching for work and when he could not find any, he returned home and asked his sister for money to buy whoonga.

When she told him she had no money, he broke into Thorpe’s flat and stole some of her jewellery, which he sold for R300 at the taxi rank.

He told the court he panicked when Thorpe walked in and found him there.

He grabbed her by the neck, pushed her and hit her with a wooden ornament. He also tied a scarf around her neck and tied her hands and left her in the flat.

He confessed to returning the next day and removing a fridge which he sold for R400 and took R800 from her hand bag.

The defence had used Ngwenya’s drug addiction as a mitigating factor for a lesser sentence while State advocate Khatija Essack had argued that sentences handed down for his previous convictions for robbery, theft and drug possession, had not been a deterrent.

KwaZulu-Natal director of the National Prosecuting Authority, advocate Moipone Noko, felt the sentence was lenient.

“We as the NPA are not happy with the kind of sentencing handed down in this case,” she said.

Noko could not say if the NPA was considering appealing the sentence.