‘Child raped so badly it would’ve killed her’
Except, aunt tells mourners, the poison got to her first
AFOUR-year-old girl whose body was found hidden in the base of a bed belonging to her mother’s boyfriend in Lawley, south of Joburg, was brutally raped before the man allegedly poisoned and strangled her.
“The way he raped her, even if he didn’t poison her, she would be dead. It was so bad,” close family friend Thandeka Mtshali said yesterday.
Asinia Mashaba went missing on Wednesday last week.
Her body was found the next day in her mother’s boyfriend David Maluleke’s RDP house across the road from the shack in which she lived. It was discovered in the base of his bed.
Maluleke, 24, was arrested on the same day.
Yesterday, the haunting sound of hymns being sung echoed across the Lawley cemetery as Asinia was buried.
Her mother Berta, 21, was comforted by family members as the tiny wooden coffin was lowered into the ground.
Pastor Stephen Jansen read a Bible verse and comforted the heartbroken family.
“I want to say to the family this morning this is purely the work of the devil. I want to say to the mother that the heart of Jesus Christ is around you this morning and will carry you through.”
He told The Star that he had been shocked by the murder.
Region G Federation of Churches, the faith-based organisation to which he belongs, helped Berta pay for the funeral.
The local community police forum and Ennerdale SAPS collected donations to provide food after the funeral because the local councillor had reportedly refused to help because Asinia was born in Mozambique.
“He said he won’t bury an outsider in South Africa,” Berta’s distraught sister, Tristasia Mashaba, claimed.
Tristasia, who spoke on behalf of Berta, who was too overcome with emotion, recalled how the girl would phone her.
“She knew how to use a phone. She’d phone while I was at work and say ‘I want Danone (yoghurt)’. We feel terrible that she was raped. He started by raping and then poisoning the child. Her mouth and tongue were black (from the poison),” she said.
Maluleke allegedly accused Berta of being a witch after his sick mother died in Giyani, Limpopo, last week, and attacked her child in revenge.
Tristasia hopes he will be sentenced to a life behind bars.
Meanwhile, Asinia’s sister Salmina, 6, had not yet grasped that she would never see her sister and best friend again.
“She doesn’t understand she’s dead. She thought (Asinia) just went to the clinic,” Mtshali said.
Gauteng police spokesman Major Mack Mngomezulu could not confirm at the time of publication that Asinia had been raped.
He, however, confirmed that Maluleke had appeared in court on a murder charge and the case had been postponed.