The defence for two women found guilty of murder asked that the court deviate from the minimum prescribed sentence of life. Mark Buttle was stabbed 53 times. His wife and her friend were found guilty of his murder and on Wednesday sentencing proceedings continued in the Durban High Court.
Durban — After having heard arguments on sentence on Wednesday from the State and defence in a murder case where a man was stabbed 53 times by his wife, her lesbian lover and their friend, the Durban High Court will hand down sentence on Thursday.
Mother of two Analidia Dias Bella Dosantos is believed to have plotted with her lover Teagan Allison Brown to kill her husband of 10 years, Mark Buttle.
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 just the murder.
It’s alleged that an insurance policy was the motive behind the murder coupled with the fact that Dosantos, who was 41 at the time of the murder in 2018, was 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 and went to a nearby house where she reported that she had been with her husband and they had been hijacked.
While there has not been evidence proving that the women, stabbed and killed Buttle, there has been evidence presented to the court of the planning, and of how he was lured to where he was killed by Dosantos on the pretext of fixing their marriage.
Evidence that directly linked the women to the bloody murder scene was ruled inadmissible by the court during a trial within a trial.
This was evidence that on the night of Buttle’s murder, Brown and Khumalo arrived after midnight on the doorstep of another woman’s house with bloodied clothes. It did not form part of the evidence of the main trial, as a statement detailing all this was ruled inadmissible by the court in a second trial within a trial in the matter.
This evidence is contained in a statement made by Inga Ogle, who died before the trial could start.
Ogle was married to the daughter of a State witness, Shareen Ogle, who was Khumalo’s ex-lover.
Sentencing proceedings for the two women, who had been out on bail during the trial but are now in custody, began on Tuesday.
In mitigation of the sentence, Khumalo’s Legal Aid attorney Musa Chiliza asked that the court consider his client’s personal circumstances cumulatively as substantial and exceptional circumstances that permit the court to deviate from the minimum prescribed sentence of life in relation to the murder.
“Evidence points that she was not the main cause of this …Although she did not plead guilty, she was the first one who was arrested and after that, the other two were arrested,” said Chiliza.
Dosantos’s attorney, WP Zama, said when it came to the minimum prescribed sentence she aligned herself with Chiliza’s submissions.
“Looking at her background as per the probation officer’s report, her childhood was unstable and she had not lived in one place or experienced being in a family environment after losing her mom at 6 months old,” said Zama, whose argument relied solely on the submitted report during sentence proceedings.
Senior State advocate Khatija Essack argued that there were no existing substantial compelling and exceptional circumstances for either of the two women that exist for the court to deviate from handing a life sentence to each of the women.
She argued that while Dosantos had lost her mother, she still had her father.
“She had a roof over her head, was schooling, and had a parent up until matric … Both accused must be sentenced to life for murder.”
Acting Judge Murray Pitman will be sentencing the women on Thursday.
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