By Bongiwe Dlamini | 2020-09-28

A 33-year-old man committed suicide hardly a day after he was reported to the police for raping his 15-year-old stepchild.

 

The man is said to have taken his own life on Thursday at Mahhomu, an area in the Hhohho region, while his two minor children watched.

 

Sources close to the matter claimed that the man was forced to take his own life after the police got a report that he was responsible for raping his teenage stepdaughter for about four years.

 

It was said that the matter was reported to the police on Wednesday by an anonymous caller who telephoned them through their emergency number 999/9999.

 

Before this, information gathered was to the effect that the 15-year-old *Sonto had informed her mother that her stepfather had been raping her since 2016 when she was only 11-years-old.

 

The rape incidents reportedly happened while the girl’s mother was away.

 

Although other people knew about the matter, sources claimed that Sonto’s mother decided that the matter should be kept under wraps and not reported to the police.

 

This seemingly did not sit well with other parties who knew about it. This was more so because in the past, Sonto had proved to be suicidal as a result of the sordid act that her stepfather had been doing to her for years.

 

It is said that on two separate instances, Sonto had been found trying to drown herself in a local river.

 

After the matter was reported to the police, Sonto and her mother went to the station last Wednesday where they made statements and a formal case was opened after the teenager repeated to the police how she was being abused by her stepfather.

 

Examination

 

Sonto was later taken to hospital for medical examination. Thereafter, she was taken somewhere else and not at the home where she lived with her mother, stepfather and two half-siblings aged 11 and 7.

 

Last Thursday, the police, through the emergency toll line, received information about a person who threatened to commit suicide at Mahhomu area. Sources said the girl’s mother had also been called by her lover who told her that he wanted to take his own life.

 

This is said to have worried the woman, so she called neighbours and asked that they checked on the father of the children.

 

Unfortunately, when they arrived at the homestead, the 33-year-old man was found foaming in the mouth.

 

He was suspected to have ingested weevil tables and gulped them down with beer, whose bottle was found near him.

 

“He was unconscious with form in the mouth and half naked when his neighbours arrived at the scene,” said a source said.

 

A suicide note was reportedly left behind by the deceased and in it, sources said, he stated that his family should not be suspected of anything as they had nothing to do with him resorting to take his life.

 

The note is said to have further stated that the person who decided to go against the family’s wish to keep the rape ordeal a secret and tipped the police about it should be blamed.

 

“In the note, he threatened that the responsible person would never find peace and that he or she will die the same way that he did,” stated the source.

 

When sought for comment on the death of the man, Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati confirmed the matter.

 

*Not real name to protect survivor

 

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