Catching a killer with courtesy and respect
Police investigator won a murderer’s trust and confession
● Apart from his impeccable investigation skills, it was the respect that a young Cape Town police officer showed Uyinene Mrwetyana’s killer that got the post office teller to confess to the murder.
Four days after Luyanda Botha was sentenced to three life sentences for raping and murdering the 19-year-old University of Cape Town student, Constable Goodwill Nkonki, 34, still referred to him as “Bhut’ Luyanda”.
The media-shy officer sat down for an interview with the Sunday Times this week after Botha’s sentencing in the high court in Cape Town last week.
Nkonki is the co-ordinator of the missing persons’ office at the Claremont police station. He has solved a number of cases involving missing persons, some of whom were found dead, since 2017. He gives himself three days to find a missing person — dead or alive.
He said what had spurred him to work around the clock to find Mrwetyana was the pain he saw on her brother Esona’s face when he reported her missing on August 26.
“I saw the pain in his eyes, he was powerless,” said Nkonki. “I told myself ‘I can’t sleep, I need to give him some answers’. I normally give myself three days to find a missing person, and in this case the body was found within that time frame and a suspect was arrested on the fourth day and was ready to confess.”
Botha was a teller at the Clareinch post office in Claremont. He admitted raping and killing Mrwetyana when she had gone to collect a parcel on August 24, and that he had taken her body to Khayelitsha, dumped it in a shallow grave and set it alight.
Nkonki described Botha as “very intelligent and cunning”. He said that after fielding calls from the community, watching CCTV footage for hours and listening to Botha’s conflicting statements, he became convinced that he was the killer and arrested him once he had evidence to support this.
Nkonki said Botha had asked to view the CCTV footage at a business opposite the post office and claimed that a generator had been stolen from his workplace — but no case of theft had been reported to the police.
“He was agitated because there were many police officers and I took him aside and told him about the evidence linking him [to the crime],” said Nkonki.
“I said respectfully: ‘This family wants answers about what happened to their child. You can imagine their pain, you also have a child’.
“Then he said: ‘That girl died fighting. That girl died in my hands’. I asked: ‘Which girl?’ He said: ‘The one you found.’ ”
Nkonki said he then arrested Botha for murder and handed the case to a seasoned detective, Captain Craig Phillips.
Nkonki said he had won Botha’s trust by being courteous and respectful. He said nothing could have prepared him for the moment he had to tell Mrwetyana’s mother the charred remains found in Khayelitsha could be that of her missing daughter, and having to attend the funeral. Phillips said his 29 years of experience had not prepared him for the Botha case, which he said had left him emotionally drained. The media spotlight and pressure from social media did not help either.
“My daughter is 23 years old and I could feel what that family was going through because it could have been my child who innocently went to the post office.”
Phillips said that when confronted with the evidence, Botha had asked to speak to his parents and wife before confessing.
“I gave him my work phone and sent my colleagues to go and fetch his wife in Khayelitsha and sent others to Cape Town, where his mother works as a domestic worker, and also brought his father. From there he said he wanted to make a confession and point out the crime scene to me.”
On the Saturday that Mrwetyana disappeared, one of Botha’s female colleagues had taken a photo of him on her phone and in it he was wearing the clothes later found in a washing machine at his home with Mrwetyana’s DNA on them.
Phillips said when the clothes were sent for forensic testing they had tested positive for Mrwetyana’s blood. He said there had been a watertight case against Botha, even if he had decided to retract his confession.
“The docket went to the prosecution and it came back with queries. We had to prepare ourselves just in case he changed his mind. The investigation was complete; his phone records, his movements and profile were done,” said Phillips.
“I had booked leave two days before Uyinene was killed and I cancelled it,” he said. “I had no time for my family for the three months. I had pressure because I knew that if anything slipped, I would be known as the detective who had messed up Uyinene’s case. All the big brass in the police kept me on my toes.”