Trio slapped with hefty jail terms for murders of ‘demon-possessed’ children

Three people convicted for the brutal murders of two children in KwaZulu-Natal have been slapped with sentences for their roles in the incident.

Two women and a male pastor were sentenced in the KwaZulu-Natal high court on Wednesday, more than four years after the children's deaths. One of the women was the mother of the oldest child and the other was related to the minors.

In Nkandla in March 2020 the women called the pastor to their home as they believed the children, aged nine and 10, were possessed by demons.

“Both women alleged they were sucking the blood out of one of the accused’s children, and invited the third accused to come to their home to pray for the children and drive out demonic spirits.

“During prayers, the children were assaulted with plastic pipes and a sjambok. They were also punched and burned. The assault caused the death of the younger child,” said National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Natasha Ramkisson-Kara.

An anonymous tip-off was made to police, who arrived and arrested the trio. The older child was taken to hospital, where she died two weeks later.

Victim impact statements from the children's family revealed the devastating effect their deaths had on relatives.

“They could not believe the evil actions committed by the accused. They said that other younger children in the house had to go for counselling after the incident,” Ramkisson-Kara said.

One woman and the pastor were slapped with 25-year prison terms on each count of murder and these were ordered to run concurrently. This means they will serve an effective 25 years in prison, the NPA said.

The other woman was given 15-year jail terms on each murder count, and the court ruled this should also run concurrently. This means she will serve 15 years.

Ramkisson-Kara said: “In sentencing the trio, the court deviated from the prescribed minimum sentence of life imprisonment, saying the case had an 'unusual factual matrix in that the accused believed  the deceased were possessed by demons and inflicted the assaults in the process of driving out the demons from the deceased'.

“The court found this to constitute as substantial and compelling circumstances to deviate from life imprisonment. Further, the court found the accused held varying levels of culpability in the commission of the offence. Hence the difference in the sentences received.”

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