Sibongile Mashaba

Sibongile Mashaba

The man who was found on Monday hanging from the rafters of the house of Soul Brothers singer David Masondo in Mofolo, Soweto, "was also targeted" by a woman in her late 40s.

The woman had earlier told Soweto police that they should either arrest the man or "I will finish him off".

Lily Zwane, of Emndeni in Soweto, said the dead man, Nkosana Dlamini, had shot and critically wounded her son on January 26, raped a number of women and children in the area and committed several housebreakings and theft.

Zwane had heard that Dlamini, 27, would attend a party in the neighbourhood on Wednesday night.

She immediately alerted the police.

"I was ready to stop the party with the aim of killing the criminal myself because the police had failed me," Zwane said. "The investigating officer had told me to stop acting like a cop because I was not one."

But Dlamini did not turn up at the party. Yesterday it was discovered that the man Zwane was looking for had already hanged himself.

She said three men were involved in the shooting of her son and the investigating officer told me that "the other men were not a threat like Dlamini".

Zwane said when word went out that she was looking for him, he told people that "she will find me but I will have killed her son already".

Dlamini's mother, Margaret Dlamini, said the only case she knew about involving her son was a rape case.

"I do not know about the other case. Now that my son is dead, a lot of things are going to come out," she said.

"It hurts me so much to hear the things that people are saying about my child. I still want to know how he killed himself.

"Why would he choose to go and hang himself at Masondo's house?"

She said she did not know that her son was wanted by the police.

"I last saw my son on Friday. He said he was going to visit his father's family in Mofolo," she said.

"When his cousin called me, she did not tell me that my son was dead. I was shocked to find his dead body lying on the ground."

Jabulani police spokesman Inspector Kay Makhubela said the man was wanted by the Naledi police for attempted murder.

"The mother of the victim knew that the man was dead. The story was in the newspapers and everybody saw it," he said.

"On Sunday last week she called the investigating officer and claimed that the man was at a party. When the police arrived, the man was not there."

But the woman said the police wanted her source to point out Dlamini in front of his friends. She said she could not risk the life of her source.