25 years in prison for woman who wiped out her family as a teenager

Onthatile Sebati, then only 15, hired her two cousins to kill her parents, pregnant sister and three-year-old brother

Onthatile Sebati, the woman who orchestrated the murders of her parents, pregnant sister and brother when she was a teenager, was handed a 25-year sentence by the Pretoria high court.

Sebati's cousins Tumelo and Kagiso Mokone were sentenced to life imprisonment. 

Their sentencing was delivered on Tuesday afternoon after mitigation and aggravating arguments presented by defence and the state. 

Sebati is accused of planning the December 2016 murders of her parents Const Solomon Lucky Sebati, mother Mmatshepo, her 19-year-old pregnant sister Tshegofatso and her three-year-old brother Quinton at their home in Mmakau near Brits, North West.

Sebati, 24, was only 15 years old when the crime was committed with the assistance of her cousins Tumelo and Kagiso Mokone who she paid R100,000 from insurance payouts she received after the murders.

According to the state, Sebati only confessed to the murder in 2021, which led to their arrests. She was under the influence of drugs when she told other members of the family about what she and her cousins had done. 

The state further said that Sebati had given her cousins her father’s gun the night before the murders were committed. She gave her cousins access to the house and they went in to shoot the entire family. As the cousins were about to flee, she asked them to shoot her in the thigh. 

In January, the Pretoria high court found Sebati and her co-accused guilty of four counts of murder, theft, robbery with aggravating circumstances, possession of a firearm and possession of ammunition.

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