Suspended sentence for mother who murdered her son, 16, by poisoning

A 40-year-old mother from Dunnottar in Nigel, Gauteng, who murdered her 16-year-old son in 2022 was on Friday sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment, wholly suspended for five years, on condition that she is not convicted of murder during the period of suspension.

The sentence by the Pretoria high court, sitting in Benoni, followed her conviction for the murder of her 16-year-old son and the attempted murder of her seven-year-old daughter.

On June 6 2022, the woman fed her two minor children food laced with poison.

“This occurred shortly after she had fallen victim to a financial scam and was unable to pay her children’s school fees. She had also recently discovered she had contracted a disease,” National Prosecuting Authority spokesperson Lumka Mahanjana said. 

After feeding the poisoned food to her children, she drove with them towards the Free State. Upon reaching Frankfort, the children began to fall ill. She stopped at a filling station, requested assistance and disclosed what she had done.

Emergency services were called and the children were transported to Frankfort Hospital where the son died.

“In her plea, the mother said she had also confessed her actions to the doctor at the hospital.”

Police were called and she was arrested. She was later released on R5,000 bail.

During mitigation of sentence she asked the court to deviate from imposing the prescribed life sentence because she was the primary caregiver of her surviving daughter.

She also told the court she was remorseful and at the time of the incident was not in the right frame of mind due to her recent diagnosis.

The prosecutor, advocate Jeffery Nethononda, urged the court to impose a sentence that reflected the seriousness of the offence and argued against deviating from the prescribed minimum sentence, given the crimes were committed against her children.

The father of the deceased child testified that while he had forgiven the mother, he struggled with the pain of losing his son.

In delivering the sentence, the court found there were substantial and compelling circumstances to deviate from the prescribed life sentence.

The court considered the mother's genuine remorse, that she was the primary caregiver of her surviving child, the betrayal and the emotional trauma she suffered from the father of her daughter and her mental health challenges, including depression, at the time of the incident.

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