Life term for brutal murder of wife

SFISO Professor Ndlovu and his wife Khulukazi. On Friday, Ndlovu was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Durban High Court for kidnapping and setting his wife alight in her car. | Supplied

SFISO Professor Ndlovu and his wife Khulukazi. On Friday, Ndlovu was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Durban High Court for kidnapping and setting his wife alight in her car. | Supplied

Published Nov 19, 2023

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Durban — The trauma of losing a loved one will begin all over again for the family of a Phoenix woman who was kidnapped, killed and torched in her car by her husband as they now begin to prepare for her funeral‒ three years after her murder.

This was what the father of murdered Khulukazi Ndlovu said outside the Durban High Court on Friday after his daughter’s husband was sentenced to life by Judge Mohini Moodley.

Ndlovu’s father, Warren Mbhada said: “We are happy that the truth has been revealed and that justice has been done. He had been denying everything all along. We did not expect to be preparing for her funeral. We will need to get a new burial order and a new death certificate and start afresh making arrangements for her funeral, and the pain will start all over again.”

KHULUKAZI Ndlovu’s burnt Kia Picanto was found on May 3 after she went missing from her Phoenix home the previous day. Her remains in the burnt car were positively identified via DNA six months after the vehicle was found.

In October, Sfiso Professor Ndlovu was found guilty of kidnapping and killing his wife. She had been missing for a few days when her car was found burnt and abandoned in a cemetery in Molweni.

Human remains were found inside the wreck, but the identity of the body was only confirmed six months later through DNA.

Mbhada said: “Thank you to the investigating team. They worked so hard. This case has been handled by two investigators up until now. There was a time when there was nothing until after the DNA results, and that was when things changed.”

KHULUKAZI’S father (middle) Warren Mbhada and his daughters (left) Poppy Nqeketho and Khululwa Ndlela outside the Durban High Court after Sfiso Professor Ndlovu was sentenced. | Nomonde Zondi

Sfiso Ndovu was arrested after the DNA results confirmed that the charred remains were his wife’s. He was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment for kidnapping and seven years for malicious damage to property, for setting alight Khulukazi’s Kia Picanto. These two sentences will run concurrently with a term of life imprisonment imposed for the murder.

Khulukazi had moved out of their Phoenix home and was renting accommodation in the area at the time of her disappearance, and had a protection order against Ndlovu. She had also started dating another man.

Sunday Tribune