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Bushbuckridge - Police are investigating the murder of a 27-year-old Mpumalanga man who allegedly killed a 20-year-old woman for refusing advances.
The deaths of Cain Makhubedu and Gracious Mashego left Bushbuckridge residents shocked on Sunday evening, with some taking to social media to condemn Mashego's death. Makhubedu was killed in a mob justice incident following Mashego's murder.
"A 27-year-old man was beaten and burnt alive... by the community of Shatale in Bushbuckridge," provincial police spokesperson Colonel Leonard Hlathi said on Monday.
"The information we got was the man stopped the woman who was on her way home from church at around 14:00. When she refused his proposal for love, the man took a stone and hit her.
"She fell and died and the suspect ran away, but the community hunted him down, cornered him at around 18:00 and started beating him. They poured petrol [on him] and burnt him alive."
Bushbuckridge police spokesperson Lieutenant Ndlovukazi Mashele said police were investigating the two murder cases, but no one had been arrested.
"We heard the information she was pregnant and her boyfriend tried to commit suicide after hearing of her death, but we cannot confirm that now. We are waiting for the post-mortem results," Mashele said.
Hlathi warned community members not to take the law into their own hands. He said this was the second incident where a suspect had been set alight in Bushbuckridge.
On September 22, Saselani village residents used sticks and stones to fatally assault Lloyd Moon, 21, one of the suspects in the murder of Charlotte Mashaba, 20, who was seven months pregnant when she was killed. Another suspect, Bongani Mkhabela, 24, was also set alight.
