I was going to write about April Fools' Day pranks but I thought that the line between lies and the truth has already been stretched so much for such a long time, it would be cruel to subject you, my dear reader, to more such.
For instance here in South Africa one of the biggest stories for the last three or so weeks has been that of Thabo Bester, the convicted sex offender who came to be known as the Facebook Rapist.
Bester targeted young women, some in their late teens and early 20s, only to rob and rape them after luring them with promises of lucrative modelling jobs through Facebook posts.
During his court case, it was reported that Bester, a convicted fraudster, had up to 13 aliases, including “Tom Bester, Thomas Kelly Bester, Thomas Kelly Young, Kelly Young, Thabo Magagula, Kelly Johnstone, Rufus Mahopo and Tom Rufus Reddy.”
As far as everyone in the country was concerned, Bester, who was convicted for the violent crimes he committed almost 10 years ago, was a dead man.
Prison authorities reported in May last year that he had committed suicide by setting himself ablaze.
At the time, May 3, 2022, the Department of Correctional Services issued a brief alert confirming an incident of death in custody, at Mangaung Correctional Centre following reports of a fire in a single cell allocated to Bester.
They said the body had been discovered by officials employed at MCC. They also said that as the body had been burnt beyond recognition, they were not classifying it as a natural death and so an investigation would be undertaken in order to determine the cause of death.
They also said that the South African Police Service would be brought in to conduct an investigation, just in case there was foul play or a criminal element involved.
The public accepted the statements at face value and moved on. None were going to shed tears and nobody was overly concerned about the investigation. The evil man was dead and that was that.
Then a couple of weeks ago, in a story that started off sounding like a hoax, Bester was said to have been spotted shopping in a high-end Johannesburg mall.
Many people laughed it off and said it was too many weeks too early for April Fools' Day jokes. After all, if the DCS had said he was dead, how could he be seen prancing about the shops? It must be an unfortunate lookalike.
Reached for comment on March 17, 2023, the DCS said they had been inundated with media enquiries on the matter and repeated that the investigation was ongoing and there had been no new developments.
This statement should have a big red flag. Surely an investigation into suicide in a jail cell with one occupant should not be taking so long. What was the hold up?
By March 25 the DCS was singing a different song. Now it would seem the investigation was over and in fact not only was Bester alive, he had escaped from the jail on the very same day that the charred remains of what was surely another person, were found in his cell.
Now the DCS says: “No stone will be left unturned in getting to the bottom of Thabo Bester's escape and there will be serious consequences for any party involved.”
It turns out that the Mangaung Correctional Centre is a public-private partnership facility contracted to Bloemfontein Correctional Contracts, operated by G4S – a company that has had a number of dramas and scandals in the correctional facilities it runs both here in South Africa and in the United Kingdom
Meanwhile, as Bester is still on the loose and assuming he has not left the country, we will wait to see if he is caught. At the same time, it's only fair to ask whose body was found in his cell and hasn’t that person been missed?
Twitter @MwangiGithahu
