A Wartburg father has pleaded guilty to stabbing his three-year-old son, to punish the boy's mother for having an affair.
|||Durban - A Wartburg father on Thursday pleaded guilty to stabbing his three-year-old son to death, to punish his son’s mother for having an affair.
Sibonelo Innocent Ndlela confessed to repeatedly stabbing little Ayabongwa, even as his son lay screaming and crying on the bed, pleading with his father to stop.
In his statement to the court, Ndlela said he had two children with his girlfriend, Samkelisiwe Ngubane: Ayabongwa and a four-year-old daughter. “Ngubane and I had a stormy relationship and I suspected her of cheating on me.
“On the morning of May 1 we were in town in Pietermaritzburg, when she admitted to cheating on me because I was a drunkard,” Ndlela said.
He said Ngubane told him to leave her alone as she wanted to meet her new lover. She then left with an unknown taxi driver.
Ndlela said he went to a tavern in the lower Pietermaritzburg CBD to drink before returning to Wartburg, where he went to another tavern.
He said at around 7pm he went to Ngubane’s house to check whether she had returned home, but she was still out.
“I put Ayabongwa to bed and called Ngubane’s cellphone. An unknown man answered and hung up. I began to brood over her fickleness and more I festered over her infidelity, the angrier I became,” Ndlela said.
Frustrated that he could not vent his anger on Ngubane, he decided to kill Ayabongwa in order to hurt her.
“I wanted her to feel the same pain as me and I concluded that the only way to accomplish this was to kill her son,” said Ndlela.
Ndlela said that he began stabbing Ayabongwa as he slept.
The child woke up screaming, but he continued to stab him until he became quiet.
Ayabongwa was still alive when his grandmother took the child to Applebosch Hospital, but he later died from his injuries.
Ndlela will be sent for psychological evaluation before sentencing.
The case was adjourned to July 1.
Daily News