A 31-year-old woman, Mamphepi Alina Mokoena, from Bethlehem in the Free State, was sentenced to 28 years jail time for killing her husband and two daughters, whom she poisoned.
Mokoena faced three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder of her third daughter, who survived. For this charge she received 10 years.
Mokoena pleaded guilty for the murders of her husband, Sofra Frans Pamplin, 49, and their daughters, 14-year-old Mamsy and Meikie Mokoena, who was only 10 years old.
In a plea agreement, Mokoena, said the marriage was volatile as she endured abuse from her husband.
“She went to town on 17 June 2022, to buy a poison known as Temic, and told her sister, who was with her, that she was buying it to poison rats at their house. In the early morning of 22 June 2022, five days after buying the poison, she prepared the family breakfast, poured the sachet of poison into a pot of beans soup and served the three children before they went to school.
“The husband took some of the poisoned soup to work for his lunch, and Mokoena took some of the soup along to work, to eat it, but did she not get a chance to eat the soup because her sister was present. Mokoena was called by the teachers at school after the three children were transported to the clinic, following their fainting.
“Portia and Meikie passed on at the clinic and Lerato was assisted and admitted to the ICU section of the Pherong District Hospital, where she recovered. The husband also fell ill at work, and he was rushed to Dihlabeng Regional Hospital, but he too, died due to the intake of the said poisoned soup,” said police spokesperson Phaladi Shuping.
Judge Pitso Molitsoane ordered the sentences to run concurrently.
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