Boyfriend helped look for lover he allegedly killed

A Soweto man allegedly killed his girlfriend of two months, then helped her worried family look for her while her decomposing body was under the bed he was sleeping on every night.

Ithabeleng Motleleng, 20, was last seen on May 25 and her body was later found wrapped in a blanket and carpet under her boyfriend's bed. He was the last person she was with and allegedly pretended to be worried about her when her family said they could not find her.

Speaking to Sowetan, Motleleng's heartbroken grandmother said they could not believe they thought the man was genuinely concerned about their child, only to find she was lying dead in his shack.

“I am disappointed and pained because the way he acted, he seemed innocent and appeared to be helping to look while he knows where [Motleleng] was,” 56-year-old Francina Nyelimane said.

The 27-year-old man was expected to appear in the Protea magistrate’s court on Tuesday on a charge of murder.

According to the family, Motleleng, a mother of a two-year-old boy who lives with her paternal family in Rustenburg, had been in a relationship with her alleged killer for two months.

On Sunday, she left her Protea South home to visit her boyfriend, who lives in the same neighbourhood, about three streets away.

Nyelimane said when by Monday afternoon Motleleng had not contacted them and her phone rang unanswered they called her boyfriend.

“He told us they had fought in the morning and he had thrown her out. We believed him,” she said.

From that day the man allegedly kept calling the family, checking if Motleleng had returned. He even went to her house to check if she was back.

When Motleleng was still not back on Wednesday, the family opened a missing person case.

On Thursday, police went to his home to question him, but he allegedly fled as soon as he saw them.

Police went to the house the next day and found him packing his clothes.

During a search of the house, Motleleng’s cousin Nthabiseng Nyelimane said she noticed the bed had a bulge in the middle and told police.

The man is alleged to have said the bulge was caused by his shoes and a carpet.

Nthabiseng reached under the bed and felt something soft, then pulled and that was when they discovered Motleleng’s body wrapped in a blanket and carpet.

He was arrested.

Motleleng’s other cousin, Dimpho Lipholo, said: “Ithabeleng's body was found naked and she didn’t have nails and hair, [the accused] told the police her clothes had blood on them and he had thrown them out with the garbage collected by municipal waste trucks.”

According to Lipholo, the couple used to fight and in early May the accused hit Motleleng with a golf club.

On Monday, angry residents descended on the man's shack and demolished then burnt it.

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