Another neighbour said she saw the body but could not identify it as it was smoky in the house.
“I peeped through the window and saw a body and I believed it was Sibusiso because the body type is the same. The person was facing up as though he was sleeping with a blanket covering him from the waist down.”
She said when Lerato was called to the scene, she was hysterical when she saw the body and started crying and screaming.
“She wanted to hurt herself, hitting her head against the wall and trying to hit herself with a spade. She kept screaming Sibusiso's name. We tried to calm her down and people were getting her some water.
“We had no reason to doubt that it was not him.”
The neighbours said Mahlangu's relative arrived at the house and fainted after viewing the body.
“Pathologists took the body out and had it covered in foil. She [the relative] fainted and we assume it was because of shock. Before the body was taken out, she had gone to the bedroom to see it.”
But this week, Gauteng police said they had arrested Sibusiso after he was caught driving a suspected stolen vehicle.
“Police in Hammanskraal received a tip-off about a suspected stolen motor vehicle. Police responded swiftly and stopped the vehicle, a white VW Polo, in Hammanskraal. Upon inspecting the vehicle, it was confirmed that it was reported stolen in Witbank this month [April],” said provincial police spokesperson Lt-Col Mavela Masondo.
“The driver of the vehicle was arrested and charged with possession of a suspected stolen motor vehicle. Upon questioning the suspect, it was established that he allegedly killed and burnt a person in Soshanguve in January 2022, before he fled to Mpumalanga. A case of murder was added,” he said.
Sithebe's family reported him missing in January last year and his picture was widely circulated.
Little did they know that he had been murdered and buried under pretence that he was Mahlangu.
News24 reported that the process to exhume the body had started.
Sithebe and Lerato had a daughter together.
Neighbours described how hours before the fire, the Mahlangus were seen having a braai and drinks with friends.
At about 5pm, a neighbour said he saw the couple drive out with the children and Mahlangu later came back alone.
One of the neighbours said she was in disbelief when she saw Mahlangu whom she believed was dead, being walked into his home by the police handcuffed and shackled, a year after he was supposedly buried.
Sithebe's sister Linah said her sibling disappeared on January 1 2022 and despite discovering that the last person to call him was Lerato, she never suspected foul play.
She said that after searching for more than a year for her brother, on Wednesday the investigating officer told her that her brother had been the one that died in the couple's house.
"How could anyone not have see that the two Sibusisos are different?"
Sithebe questioned how Mahlangu's relatives proceeded with the funeral when the pictures from police clearly showed that the deceased was not Mahlangu.
"He had burn wounds but you could still tell that it's my brother. Police also couldn't see that this is the same man that was reported missing."
The couple is expected to appear in court next week.
sibiyan@sowetan.co.za
Residents shocked by 'staged' house fire
Victim is ex-lover of wife of man who 'died', says family and neighbours
Image: Thulani Mbele
Neighbours of a man and his wife arrested for the murder of the woman's ex-boyfriend Sibusiso Sithebe have told of how she cried hysterically on the night a body was found in their house.
This they said had led them to believe that it was Lerato Mahlangu's husband Sibusiso who was found dead on the bed in the house in Block HH in Soshanguve, north of Pretoria on January 2 last year.
They described how on the day they were alerted to a fire at the couple's house and they rushed there to help put it out.
“My children and I woke up and rushed to the house with buckets of water to try to put it out. There was a lot of smoke but we could not see any flames. We just poured water everywhere,” said the neighbour who asked not to be named.
“When one of the neighbours opened the door to spray water with a hosepipe, he discovered that there was a body in one of the bedrooms. It was on the bed.”
Another neighbour said she saw the body but could not identify it as it was smoky in the house.
“I peeped through the window and saw a body and I believed it was Sibusiso because the body type is the same. The person was facing up as though he was sleeping with a blanket covering him from the waist down.”
She said when Lerato was called to the scene, she was hysterical when she saw the body and started crying and screaming.
“She wanted to hurt herself, hitting her head against the wall and trying to hit herself with a spade. She kept screaming Sibusiso's name. We tried to calm her down and people were getting her some water.
“We had no reason to doubt that it was not him.”
The neighbours said Mahlangu's relative arrived at the house and fainted after viewing the body.
“Pathologists took the body out and had it covered in foil. She [the relative] fainted and we assume it was because of shock. Before the body was taken out, she had gone to the bedroom to see it.”
But this week, Gauteng police said they had arrested Sibusiso after he was caught driving a suspected stolen vehicle.
“Police in Hammanskraal received a tip-off about a suspected stolen motor vehicle. Police responded swiftly and stopped the vehicle, a white VW Polo, in Hammanskraal. Upon inspecting the vehicle, it was confirmed that it was reported stolen in Witbank this month [April],” said provincial police spokesperson Lt-Col Mavela Masondo.
“The driver of the vehicle was arrested and charged with possession of a suspected stolen motor vehicle. Upon questioning the suspect, it was established that he allegedly killed and burnt a person in Soshanguve in January 2022, before he fled to Mpumalanga. A case of murder was added,” he said.
Sithebe's family reported him missing in January last year and his picture was widely circulated.
Little did they know that he had been murdered and buried under pretence that he was Mahlangu.
News24 reported that the process to exhume the body had started.
Sithebe and Lerato had a daughter together.
Neighbours described how hours before the fire, the Mahlangus were seen having a braai and drinks with friends.
At about 5pm, a neighbour said he saw the couple drive out with the children and Mahlangu later came back alone.
One of the neighbours said she was in disbelief when she saw Mahlangu whom she believed was dead, being walked into his home by the police handcuffed and shackled, a year after he was supposedly buried.
Sithebe's sister Linah said her sibling disappeared on January 1 2022 and despite discovering that the last person to call him was Lerato, she never suspected foul play.
She said that after searching for more than a year for her brother, on Wednesday the investigating officer told her that her brother had been the one that died in the couple's house.
"How could anyone not have see that the two Sibusisos are different?"
Sithebe questioned how Mahlangu's relatives proceeded with the funeral when the pictures from police clearly showed that the deceased was not Mahlangu.
"He had burn wounds but you could still tell that it's my brother. Police also couldn't see that this is the same man that was reported missing."
The couple is expected to appear in court next week.
sibiyan@sowetan.co.za
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