Man gets 20 years for killing partner over missing baby

A 38-year-old man was sentenced to 20 years of direct imprisonment in the Scottburgh Regional Court after pleading guilty to the murder of his 33-year-old partner – an incident that unfolded in November 2025 when the accused discovered their two-month-old infant missing from their home.

The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) confirmed  that the accused, whose name has not been released to protect the identity of the minor child, admitted to fatally assaulting his partner with a stick after returning home on November 29, 2025, to find her heavily intoxicated and unable to account for the whereabouts of their baby.

The court heard that the couple, who were in a domestic relationship, had a child together. Upon arriving at their shared residence, the accused found his partner unconscious from alcohol consumption. When she regained consciousness, she could not explain where the infant was.

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Enraged by the situation, the accused repeatedly beat her with a stick. A neighbour later intervened, informing the man that she had taken the baby into her care because the deceased was too intoxicated to look after the child.

According to the state prosecutor, Advocate Thanusha Govender, the accused left the house later that evening to obtain medication after the woman complained of severe body pains.

When he returned, he discovered she had died. He immediately called for an ambulance, but emergency personnel declared her dead at the scene.

The accused surrendered himself following the incident and was arrested by police. In her sentencing submissions, Advocate Govender handed in the post-mortem report and argued that the accused’s actions had permanently robbed the couple’s minor child of the opportunity to know and grow up with his mother.

She further submitted that the deceased’s family had endured immense pain and trauma as a result of her death.

The court handed down a sentence of 20 years’ direct imprisonment, deviating from the prescribed minimum sentence of life imprisonment.

The magistrate presiding over the case found that the accused’s guilty plea, lack of previous convictions, genuine remorse, and the fact that he acted in the heat of anger constituted substantial and compelling circumstances justifying the deviation.

The court also declared the accused unfit to possess a firearm. Regional spokesperson of the National Prosecuting Authority, Natasha Ramkisson-Kara, welcomed the sentence, stating that it reinforces the state’s commitment to holding perpetrators of gender-based violence and femicide accountable.

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“The NPA hopes that sentences of this nature will serve as a deterrent to those who resort to violence, particularly in domestic relationships,” Ramkisson-Kara said.

The case has once again drawn attention to the pervasive issue of intimate partner violence in South Africa, which continues to record some of the highest rates of gender-based violence globally.