Durban — The State has asked that the court hand each of the women accused of the murder of a man they stabbed 53 times a life sentence, describing the killing as gruesome and vicious.
Mother of two Analidia Dias Bella Dosantos is believed to have plotted with her lover, Teagan Allison Brown, to kill Mark Buttle, her husband of 10 years.
Evidence heard during the trial was that Dosantos and Brown roped in their friend Charmaine Margaret Khumalo to help find someone who would kill Buttle.
Brown died in July last year ahead of the trial starting. Dosantos and Khumalo stood trial last year and were convicted in January. Dosantos was found guilty of murder as well as defeating the ends of justice, while Khumalo was convicted of the murder alone.
It is alleged that an insurance policy was the motive behind the murder, coupled with Dosantos, who was 41 at the time of the murder in 2018, alleged to have been having an affair with Brown, who was 25.
Following the murder, Dosantos, while on Napdale Road, allegedly parted ways with the other women. She went to a nearby house where she reported that she had been with her husband and they had been hijacked.
“In my entire career, this is my first time experiencing a deceased having been stabbed 53 times by females or where females were involved,” Senior State advocate Khatija Essack said in aggravation of sentence in the Durban High Court on Wednesday.
“Looking at the deceased from the evidence of his friend, Buttle adopted the older child of accused 3 (Dosantos).
“Looking at the nature of the deceased, if accused 3 had just asked him for money he would have given it to her. Dosantos didn’t consider once that this was a human being, her spouse, and a good father,” said Essack.
Buttle and Dosantos had been married for 10 years and had one minor child together at the time of the murder in 2018.
Khumalo had one previous conviction for assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm for assaulting the wife of her ex-boyfriend in 2001.
“Khumalo has an assault GBH conviction. As old as it may be, it shows that she has a tendency for violence.
“She didn’t even know the deceased so her involvement was for money and at that point, she was gainfully employed so it was greed.
“No substantial and compelling circumstances exist for the court to deviate from the minimum prescribed sentence of life,” said Essack.
Khumalo’s Legal Aid attorney submitted in mitigation of sentence that his client was the first to be arrested and that it was after her arrest that the other two women were nabbed.
Acting Judge Murray Pitman said he would have difficulty considering this given that Khumalo had not pleaded guilty and come clean from the onset.
“I understand what you are trying to submit, that the reason the other two were arrested was due to her co-operation, but there’s no evidence on record to suggest that,” said Pitman.
The two women will be sentenced on Thursday (today).
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