Charmaine Margaret Khumalo (in white jacket) and Analidia Dias Bella Dosantos, convicted of the murder of Dosontos’ husband, who was stabbed 53 times, await sentencing in the Durban High Court.
Durban — A probation officer recommended in a pre-sentencing report that the Newlands East woman who conspired with her lesbian lover and solicited the help of a friend in murdering her husband be sentenced to a direct term of imprisonment.
Mark Buttle was stabbed 53 times in the neck in 2018 while in his car in Newlands East, allegedly by his wife Analidia Dias Bella Dosantos, her lover Teagan Allison Brown, and the two women’s friend Charmaine Margaret Khumalo.
Brown died in July last year before the trial. Dosantos and Khumalo stood trial last year and were convicted in January.
On Tuesday sentencing proceedings got under way. Dosantos’s attorney, WP Zama, handed over a pre-sentencing report compiled by Department of Social Development probation officer Thabile Mbuyazi.
In the report, Mbuyazi said a term of imprisonment was an unavoidable option considering the fact the offence was premeditated. This option would adequately balance the nature of the offence and the impact it has had on the victims.
“The accused still maintained her innocence despite the fact that she was found guilty by the court. She did not take responsibility for the offence and that may be viewed as not showing remorse” said Mbuyazi.
During the trial and even after her arrest, Dosantos’s version was that she and her husband of ten years were hijacked and she had managed to get away.
Mbuyazi said when Dosantos was narrating this version to her, “she was smiling and did not show any emotions that indicated any form of hurt or sadness”.
The couple’s daughter, now 13 years old, was also interviewed for the report. Mbuyazi noted that the child was still traumatised by her father’s death.
She said that from Buttle’s father, Andrew Buttle, she had learnt that the child was attending counselling sessions with a psychologist because she was not coping after losing her father at such a young age.
“The fact that her father was murdered by her mother appears to make the situation worse for the child. She is now presenting with suicidal tendencies of slitting her own wrists,” said Mbuyazi.
Senior State advocate Khatija Essack submitted the Victim Impact Statement of Buttle’s father, Andrew, to the court to be considered when handing down sentence. In it, Buttle tells of the emotional turmoil that he and his wife have endured following their son’s murder.
He said his wife’s health deteriorated rapidly and seriously after their son’s murder, heightened by the fact that his wife had killed him.
“She had numerous hospital visits regarding fibrillation of her heart. This led to the implant of a pacemaker some two years later. Notwithstanding my wife’s medical condition and the stress on myself, we had to break away from a comfortable retirement to take on the challenges and responsibility of bringing up and educating an 8-year-old granddaughter.”
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