Woman who wiped out her family members to claim insurance benefits bags 25-year jail term

The victims included her parents, pregnant sister and brother.

Onthatile Sebati, who was 16 years old at the time of the December 2016 chilling murders, connived with her cousins, Tumelo and Kagiso Mokone, to wipe out her entire family killed to satisfy her desire to claim her parents’ insurance benefits.

Onthatile’s father, Solomon Lucky Sebati, was a police constable while her mother Mmatshepo was a nurse.

Both her parents, her 19-year-old pregnant sister, Tshegofatso, and her three-year-old brother, Quinton, were shot in their home in Mmakau, North West.

Judge Mashudu Munzhelele of the Pretoria High Court described Onthatile action as a betrayal of trust which her family members had in her.

However, her cousins, who were 18-years-old at the time of the crime were sentenced to life imprisonment.

 

 Onthatile had hired them to kill the victims and paid them R100,000 from insurance payout.

“The murder of four individuals, including parents and children, is a heinous act of violence, and the fact that accused number two (Onthatile), a family member, was an accomplice in the killing of her family intensifies the emotional devastation and the seriousness of the crime,” the judge said while delivering judgment.

According to the prosecutors, Onthatile masterminded the murder by ensuring her cousins has access to her family ‘s house including the father’s gun which they used in killing all the family members.

While Kagiso shot the deceased, Tumelo waited in the getaway vehicle. After the murder, Onthatile paid them R100,000 from insurance payouts.

Five years after the incident, Onthatile reported herself to relatives and confessed she killed her family members and mentioned her two cousins as accomplices.

They were handed to the police charged with theft, four counts of murder, robbery with aggravating circumstances, and possession of a firearm and ammunition, and were found guilty earlier this year. They were declared unfit to own firearms.

Prosecutors told the court that relatives are yet to come to terms with the action of the convicts as it has caused emotional damage to the family.

Onthatile’s aunt, Japhitaline Sebati, hailed the judgment describing it as “justice served,”

“It is painful to see such an intelligent child waste her future, but I hope she gets rehabilitated,” she said.