By Rex Mphisa
THE trial of a Limpopo Province farmer accused of killing Maria Makgato, 45, and Lucia Ndlovu, 34 a South African and Zimbabwean respectively, before feeding pigs with their remains, continues on Wednesday in the Polokwane High Court.
Zachariah Johannes Olivier an his two workers Adrian de Wet, 21, and Zimbabwean William Musora are accused of the murder of Makgato and Ndlovu.
The two women were looking for food at Olivier’s farm dump site when they were shot dead.
After that, it is alleged, their bodies were thrown into a pig pen to be eaten to conceal evidence.
A third person, reported as Ndlovu’s husband, was also shot but lived to tell the story after he crawled to a road where he screamed for help.
Days later, police discovered the women’s decomposing bodies in a pigsty on the farm.
Last week de Wet described to a court how he was forced by his boss to feed the bodies Makgato and Ndlovu to pigs.
He said he was told to throw the bodies inside a pig enclosure, explaining that “when pigs are hungry enough, they’ll eat anything”.
He admitted opening fire on the two women with his boss – farm owner Olivier – before he ordered him to help dispose of their bodies.
Mr Olivier and another man, William Musora, are accused of murder after Maria Makgato, 45, and Lucia Ndlovu, 34, were killed while allegedly looking for food on a farm near Polokwane in South Africa’s northern Limpopo province last year.
De Wet, a farm supervisor, was also previously accused of murder, but charges were dropped by the prosecution when he turned state witness. He had argued he was under duress when he was forced to throw the bodies into the pig enclosure.
Last Thursday De Wet told Polokwane High Court that he and Olivier, 60, armed themselves with hunting rifles and waited for trespassers to enter the farm on the night of 17 August 2024.
He said after waiting for 30 minutes they heard voices of people talking and walking towards their direction.
They then opened fire and heard a person screaming, before inspecting the area and finding a person lying face down.
After leaving the area and going to sleep, they returned the next morning and found it was the body of a woman.
De Wet said he was asked by Olivier to help him throw the body inside the enclosure where eight to ten big adult pigs were kept.
The following day another body was found about 25 metres from where the first was found.
Olivier, De Wet and Musora, 50, are said to have then thrown the second body inside the pigsty.
On the following Tuesday they returned to it and found that the pigs had bitten off large chunks of flesh on the women.
Pictures presented as exhibits in court show missing buttocks, face, thighs and shoulders.
State prosecutor Advocate George Sekhukhune asked De Wet what the purpose of placing the bodies inside the pigsty was, to which he answered: “We were disposing the evidence because when pigs are hungry enough, they’ll eat anything.”
De Wet also said Olivier chopped up the hunting rifles with an angle grinder and burnt the wooden parts of the gun. They then threw away the cut up weapons including the spent cartridges inside a borehole.
The son of victim Makgato cried repeatedly in court, while Olivier was seen wiping away tears as De Wet gave his evidence.
The case has sparked outrage across South Africa, exacerbating racial tensions between black and white people in the country.
This is especially rife in rural areas of the country, despite the end of the racist system of apartheid 30 years ago.
Most private farmland remains in the hands of the white minority, while most farm workers are black and poorly paid, fuelling resentment among the black population, while many white farmers complain of high crime rates.
Cross examination of De Wet by defence lawyers of Mr Olivier and Mr Musora will resume on Wednesday….BBC News