ALI MPHAKI
THE POLICE have arrested a 37-year-old woman after her elderly uncle was found dead in a pool of blood with multiple stab wounds on the body.
Police spokeswoman Captain Phephi Matlou-Mteto said there was a domestic quarrel between the two at the Diepkloof Zone 5 home on Sunday afternoon, which led to the fatal stabbing. She said the woman was handed over to the Diepkloof police station by her family on Monday afternoon. She said the woman had fled her home on Sunday afternoon.
Shocked family members found Alton Velaphi Xubane, who was in his sixties, slumped on the floor in a pool of blood.
When reporters from The Star arrived at the house yesterday, family members were too distraught to speak to the media.
“There is nothing to say,” said a woman relative who did not want to be identified.
But another relative – speaking on condition of anonymity – said trouble started when Xubane objected to his niece spending the night with her boyfriend in her backyard room. She said Xubane had strenuously objected and tried to reason with his niece that theirs was a family home and that she wasn’t allowed to sleep with a man in the yard while out of wedlock.
The woman is said to have left the yard and come back after several hours and found Xubane watching television in the dining room. Without saying anything, she allegedly started stabbing him with a knife, leaving him for dead before fleeing the scene.
“The whole family are shocked. We never expected such a thing. What are we going to teach our children when our own family members can do this to one another?” the relative asked, shaking her head in disbelief.
Xubane, who was sickly and unemployed, was described as a man who loved peace.
“Pity he had to die this way – moreover at the hands of a relative,” said a neighbour.
The suspect is to appear in the Orlando Magistrate’s Court on Friday. Xubane will be buried at the weekend.