Imibuzo episode 7 recap: Caught by a dead woman’s hands

Trigger warning: This case includes graphic descriptions of gender-based violence and dismemberment.  

In November 2021, a woman alerted the police after she found hands belonging to 23-year-old medical student Tshepang Pitse inside a fridge-freezer belonging to her new boyfriend, actuary Flavio Hlabangwane – Tshepang’s cousin and ex-lover. A police search later turned up Tshepang’s head, which was buried in a shallow grave in Luthereng, in Protea Glen. Flavio claimed that he had thrown the rest of Tshepang’s body (thighs, pelvis, abdomen, and torso) in the Kliprivier, but to date her remains have not been found.  

While Flavio tried to blame his decision to murder Tshepang on everything from alleged infidelity to a fight over a credit card, a witness close to the couple revealed that Tshepang had previously complained about Flavio beating her, belittling her, shaving her head, threatening to kill her if she left, and driving her to the brink of suicide. Voice notes played in court supported the accusations, and revealed that Flavio had also threatened those Tshepang went to for help. In May 2023, 29-year-old Flavio was sentenced to life in prison for the premeditated murder of Tshepang, and the violation of her corpse. 

Now Imibuzo chats with Tshepang’s father, Walter Pitse, Johan Barnes – a Senior State Advocate at the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions in Johannesburg – social activist Thami Madondo, and reporter Khanyisile Ncgobo about the crime.  

Recap: What happened in Imibuzo episode 1 

Recap: What happened in Imibuzo episode 2 

Recap: What happened in Imibuzo episode 3 

Recap: What happened in Imibuzo episode 4 

Recap: What happened in Imibuzo episode 5 

Recap: What happened in Imibuzo episode 6 

Watch the trailer for Imibuzo 

A stolen daughter 

Tshepang went to live with her mother’s family after her mom died in June 2013. “Her mother passed away, and I was left with Tshepang ,” says Walter Pitse. “After a day, Tshepang’s maternal family came to take her and her sister (Tshenolo). At that time, I was ill. I didn’t have the strength to refuse because I was very weak after their mother’s funeral. Their aunt Grace, Flavio’s mother, aggressively fetched them because she was quite violent. The only reason why she took in my children was because she thought their mother had left them an inheritance,” Walter insists. “But they didn’t initially live with Grace. Tshepang’s mother had four or five siblings. So, they initially lived with their eldest aunt. After that, they moved to their uncle and lastly, they lived with Grace.”  

There, 15-year-old Tshepang grew close to her older cousin, Flavio. And while father and daughter remained close, Walter wasn’t aware of the sexual relationship that had developed between Flavio and Tshepang until after her death.  

“Even during her school holidays, she would visit me. She would sometimes visit for a weekend to do her laundry. She came to visit near the end of July (2021), so in that three months she lived with me. On the sixth of October she told me she was leaving. I offered to drop her off at the station. She told me not to worry because her friend will come and pick her up. When I looked outside, I saw Flavio’s car,” he remembers. Just weeks later, Flavio would kill his daughter. “She left on the sixth. I called her on the seventh, and she said she was fine. I think I spoke to her for a week or two. After that, her cell phone started going to voicemail,” he says. But Walter thought that his busy medical student daughter was just studying.  

“On the 13th of November, on the radio, they spoke about finding human body parts in someone’s freezer. The body parts were discovered by the said man’s girlfriend. They didn’t say his name, though,” Walter says. Despite Flavio’s arrest and court appearance on 15 November, his side of the family made no effort to contact Walter.

It was three days before he found out that the killer in question was Flavio, thanks to Tshenolo calling him and telling him that Flavio had been arrested, and she was worried because she couldn’t get hold of Tshepang. “I became confused,” Walter says. “I kept hearing that a boyfriend has killed his girlfriend. I didn’t know that they were in a relationship. I just knew them to be cousins.” 

A grisly puzzle 

According to the list of court exhibits that Imibuzo features, Flavio kept Tshepang’s arms and lower legs wrapped in black bin bags in the freezer compartment of his fridge. “By the time this story broke out, those body parts would have been in Flavio’s fridge for more than a month,” says Thami Madondo, “So, imagine on a daily basis, how many days this guy had the body parts in his fridge. He kept opening up that fridge and putting in his own food.” Flavio lived with that secret until his new girlfriend made her grizzly discovery.

“Flavio had gone to the shops to buy something,” explains Thami Madondo. “I think she must have gotten thirsty and opened the freezer. And upon opening the freezer she got a shock of a lifetime. She came running out of the house, almost naked. She had only her panties on. And she ran into the house further down the street.”  

“When we learnt about this in 2021-2022, we were distraught. I became ill. I became very weak because I couldn’t eat or do anything,” says Walter, unable to speak further at the thought.  

Investigators and prosecutors were determined not to let Flavio walk away, but there were a lot of pieces to the puzzle. “What we had was the body. We had the evidence of the person who found the body parts, and then we have the people who last saw her. We had to do a proper investigation. It wasn’t just DNA. They had to go in the shower and also see where there was blood. Once we saw, ‘Okay, there’s blood or traces of blood,’ then that batch was sent to forensics to get the DNA,” says Johan Barnes.  

“We had a head that was decomposed in such a way that you could hardly see. We had arms and legs with tattoos on it. So we had to get the family members to actually go identify the tattoo,” Johan adds. “We had to take fingerprints from the fingers and compare those with Home Affairs. You can’t just take one arm, you’ve got to prove the two arms as well as the two legs belonged to the deceased. You had to prove that the head belongs to the deceased. You cannot just test one of those parts and say everything belongs to the deceased. You have to test every single part. And that, itself, was an investigation that took time.” 

Premeditated murder 

In footage caught on camera, Imibuzo shows one of Flavio’s two suicide attempts during the trial. An officer of the court calls his Brigadier to reveal that Flavio threatened him with a knife, before stabbing himself, leaving a gory trail all over the holding room. But the court wasn’t standing for any more delays.  

Flavio produced a written confession in which he admitted, “In the period of September until early October I was mostly on the internet searching for ways to kill the deceased, and also for the quickest way to dispose of a corpse.” But despite his planning, Flavio insisted that he killed Tshepang on the spur of the moment during an argument over him taking and using her credit card on 6 October 2021, “Which created an opportunity for me to actually kill her as I had planned.” 

Khanyisile Ncgobo adds, “Flavio explained in his confession that they got into a fight. He pushed her. Tshepang then hit her head at the edge of the stove. She then fell and started bleeding. As Tshepang tried to get up, then Flavio stabbed her in the neck and then she died immediately.”  

“He says it wasn’t planned or premeditated. It happened at the spur of the moment,” explains Johan. “Section 51(1) of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 105 of 1997 determines that there is a minimum sentence of life imprisonment if the murder was planned or premeditated.” Flavio’s confession was geared at weaselling his way to a lighter sentence. The court, however, was not convinced.  

A portrait of abuse 

On the surface, Flavio and Tshepang were two bright, quiet and studious people. “The mother described Flavio as a recluse and a bookworm. A bright child. He was a graduate of Actuarial Science,” says Khanyisile Ncgobo. 

“Flavio was very diplomatic and very intelligent. He would make you feel very comfortable,” says Thami Madondo. But he notes that Flavio had a history of responding with violent anger when things didn’t go his way. Thami reveals that when there was an electrical fault on their street, Flavio blew up at his landlord. “Flavio was going mad. He went crazy.”  

One of Tshepang’s friends already knew Flavio’s ugly side. “One of the women that I interviewed was Tshepang’s close friend. They grew up together,” says Thami. “There was a voice note trending wherein Flavio says to Tshepang, ‘I’ll cut your hair. Come here, b*tch. I’ll cut your hair if you’re not here in 10-15 minutes.’ And that woman I spoke to confirmed that the following day, Flavio had cut Tshepang’s hair. She then relayed to me who Flavio actually was in this relationship. Allegedly, Flavio had pressed Tshepang’s face against a two-plate stove.” 

In court, a friend of Tshepang’s revealed, “She told me that Flavio beats her up…She was crying. She wanted to commit suicide. And she also told me that Flavio did indeed shave her hair. She then called me saying that she’s scared. She thinks this guy is going to kill her. When she said this guy, she was referring to Flavio.” 

“Flavio abused Tshepang. Flavio didn’t want Tshepang to have any friends. It’s quite painful,” says Walter.  

Taking GBV seriously 

Imibuzo spotlights the scope of the damage that gender-based violence causes. Flavio murdered Tshepang, but his crime doesn’t stop at her death. For her family, her community, and all women who live under the constant threat of violence, he has also left wounds that won’t heal.  

As a reporter, Khanyisile was deeply affected by the case, and the growing amount of GBV cases she covers. “It’s difficult to ascertain whether there has been an exponential increase in GBV cases, because we certainly are covering them more. Fortunately or unfortunately graphic details often emerge. As opposed to the police in the past just telling us that a woman has been killed by her partner, if she was dismembered we get that information. If she was attacked with an axe, we do get that information. It shines a bigger spotlight on the nature of the women’s deaths. There have been reports of women being violently and brutally killed. We’ve just never gotten the nature of it until now.” 

Johan adds, “The courts are taking gender-based violence extremely seriously. And I know that the courts are not tolerating these types of crimes. Even the minimum sentence has changed regarding that. It has become a lot more serious, which is right.”

For Tshepang’s family, though, there is a deeper, personal edge to the pain.  

“We were quite hurt because when we were told to take her remains, we did so only because she had been at the mortuary for far too long,” says Walter. “They said if they found her missing body parts, they would call and inform us. So, we decided to bury her since she had been at the mortuary for far too long.”  

The murder has also destroyed ties between the family members. “Grace hasn’t called me nor have we spoken till today. Because if she was upset by this, the day she learnt of Flavio killing Tshepang, she could have gone to the police and asked them to accompany her to inform me instead of me finding out months later that my daughter has passed on,” reveals Walter. 

About Imibuzo 

Now streaming on Showmax, Imibuzo is a true-crime documentary anthology that will answer your lingering questions about some of South Africa’s biggest news stories from the last decade. New episodes will drop every Monday until 10 July 2023.  

Imibuzo is being produced by POP24, part of Media24, who made the reality series This Body Works For Me, which topped the Showmax Top 20 and Twitter trends charts. POP24 also co-produced the SAFTA-nominated true crime anthology Huisgenoot: Ware Lewensdramas. 

Watch Imibuzo now on Showmax.