Man who killed his wife tried taking his own life while waiting for sentencing

Convicted murderer Simphiwe Mxosa attempted taking his own life before a life sentence was handed down.

A police officer went down to the hold­ing cells and ran back up to the courtroom call­ing for col­leagues, who then rushed to the cells.

Moments later, the former prison warder was escor­ted by the officers into the dock, his hands cuffed behind his back.

Mxosa, 48, appeared agit­ated as an officer tried to unlock the cuffs.

A police report reveals Mxosa, using a cloth twis­ted into a cord and tied to the cell’s bars, had tried to hang him­self in the cell he was occupy­ing alone. It appeared the cloth had torn.

It was not clear to the media how long Mxosa was alone in the cell, but the case was delayed until shortly after 1pm. The report said Mxosa was uninjured.

In Feb­ru­ary, judge Mbu­lelo Vic­tor Nqumse con­victed Mxosa of the pre­med­it­ated murder of Bulelwa Mxosa, his wife and the mother of four chil­dren, in Feb­ru­ary.

Passing sen­tence on Wed­nes­day, the judge said Mxosa had shown no remorse.

Bulelwa’s father, James Tutu, broke down as the judge read a doc­tor’s report detail­ing the extent of dam­age caused by Mxosa when he hacked her with a bush knife in his room in West Bank prison bar­racks in March last year.

Mxosa kept his head down as Nqumse spoke of the skyrock­et­ing scourge of gender-based viol­ence.

The judge described Mxosa’s crime as both hein­ous and pre­med­it­ated.

“The applic­a­tion for a pro­tec­tion order by [Bulelwa], albeit being with­drawn, is a clear indic­a­tion that she was among the many women who are a sub­ject of abuse from men under the pre­text of being loved,” he said.

Dur­ing the trial, a nine-year-old girl test­i­fied that she had seen Mxosa hack Bulelwa.

The court also heard how viol­ent Mxosa had been towards his wife and chil­dren.