Slain University of Fort Hare (UFH) final year law student Nosicelo Mtebeni, the daughter of an unemployed mother and a street hawker father, was due to become the first ever graduate in her family and had plans to uplift her family from a life of poverty.
Mtebeni’s father Kholisile and mother Ntombizandile had pinned their hopes on Nosicelo to change the dire situation back at home in Matatiele’s Malosini Village.
This was revealed by her distraught sister Ntombovuyo Mtebeni during an interview with News24 outside the East London Magistrate’s Court where her alleged killer Alutha Pasile appeared for her murder on Monday.
She was due to graduate in April but her life was cut short, allegedly at the hands of Pasile, her boyfriend.
Mtebeni’s upper body was found stuffed inside an orange luggage bag on the corner of Fitzpatrick Street and Fleet Street in East London’s Quigney suburb.
Next to the luggage bag was a black garbage bag containing parts of her body.
Mtebeni’s head and hands were allegedly found in Pasile’s possession inside a room in the 10-room commune house he and Mtebeni shared with other tenants.
The gruesome incident has horrified the nation and brought back the sense of horror felt on August 24, 2018, when University of Cape Town student Uyinene Mrwetyana was raped and murdered inside a Post Office in Claremont, Cape Town.
During Pasile’s first court appearance on Monday, dozens of young students wearing T-shirts with faces of Mrwetyana, joined more than 2 000 people picketing outside the court against femicide and gender-based violence.
Pasile, who the National Prosecuting Authority claims confessed to the police to killing Mtebeni for apparently cheating on him, has abandoned an application for bail and his right to legal representation.
The case has been postponed to September 28 for further investigation.
Ntombovuyo said, “We have been left in utter shock, I last spent quality time with her in 2019 during a family function where she was excitedly telling me about her plans to build her parents their dream home after varsity. I still can’t believe she is gone.”
Asked how the family was coping, Ntombovuyo said:
“We are all having sleepless nights and we are all complaining about having flash backs of the pictures of her body and parts being circulated on social media. The pictures are adding salt to injury.”
Ntombovuyo said the entire Mtebeni family was finding it difficult to come to terms with the horrific murder.
“We had already started counting down the months until our family welcomes its first graduate and a lawyer. Everyone was in high spirits but if it’s God’s plans, all is well,” added Noluvuyo.
Kholisile and Ntombizandile are staying at a hotel in East London courtesy of the University of Fort Hare.
They arrived on Sunday and visited house 117 Fleet Street where their daughter was murdered.
The couple will took the 450 kilometre journey back home on Wednesday after the memorial service for their daughter, which was organised by the university.
UFH Vice-Chancellor Professor Sakhela Buhlungu said the university views the encroachment and escalation of crime, lawlessness which has plunged the East London CBD and suburbs of Quigney and Southernwood into a state of absolute desolation and decay, as an indirect cause of Mtebeni’s death.
