Tshego Bodibe (middle) Moses Mogashoa (left) and Bongani Radebe (right) protest outside the Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday.
- Silent protesters carrying placards with messages and images of Tshegofatso Pule stood outside the Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court.
- Among the protesters was Tshepo Bodibe, a resident who found Pule’s body.
- Pule, 28, was eight months pregnant when she was killed. She was last seen visiting her boyfriend in Florida.
One of the men, among those first to see Tshegofatso Pule’s body hanging from a tree, stood outside the Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday, holding up a placard depicting the image of the murdered eight-month pregnant woman.
Watching as the media gathered ahead of the appearance of the man accused of murdering Pule, Tshepo Bodibe whispered to his friend that “some men are dangerous”.
Bodibe said he was called to the scene where Pule’s body was found earlier this month by a group of Roodepoort Durban Deep residents. She had been stabbed in the chest.
Several of those residents were with Bodibe to protest outside the court.
“On that day, I was called by a friend from home that they had found the body of a woman hanging from a tree. At the time, we all didn’t know who she was. We then started taking pictures of her and posted them on social media to assist her family in identifying her,” he told News24.
“We posted them on Facebook and they went viral. The victim was later identified by her family on June 8, three days after we found her body,” said Bodibe.
Bodibe, clutching his placard, told News24 that the image of Pule on that day still lingers in his mind.
The message on the placard under a picture of Pule read: “#Justice4Tshego mattered 2 me. Not in her name.”
“We want justice for Pule. We don’t know her and have never met her before, but as men it is our responsibility to stand against gender-based violence and defend women and children against abuse,” said Bodibe.
On Monday, a 31-year-old man was arrested in connection with Pule’s death. He is expected to appear in the Roodepoort Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday.
Pule’s death caused outrage on social media and the hashtag #JusticeForTshego was trending on Twitter on Monday.
City Press reported that on 4 June, Pule left her home in Meadowlands, Soweto.
“She said they were going to buy their unborn child clothes. That was the last time the family saw her alive,” Pule’s uncle, Tumisang Katake told the publication.
She was last seen on CCTV footage leaving her boyfriend’s complex in Florida in a grey Jeep, after reportedly having a fight with him.
