- Stabbed ex-girlfriend to death at a clinic in Topisi
A jilted lover with a long history of domestic abuse and controlling behavior who ferociously attacked and killed his former lover, also the mother of children with a knife at a clinic in Topisi four years ago, was recently sentenced to death by the Francistown High Court.
Thirty-seven-year-old Lesego Outule pleaded guilty for murdering Boitlhoko Nthabisang publicly on May 17, 2021 at a clinic in the village of Topisi. Femicide which Judge Taboka Slave described as “one of singular brutality, involving relentless and public stabbing of the deceased, the mother of his children, until she died.”
“The attack itself was ferocious. Persistent and executed in a public place where the deceased was seeking safety and medical care. It displayed a chilling determination to end her life.”
Justice Slave said Outule’s belief that his former girlfriend infected him with HIV and thereafter abandoning him caused immense stress and led him to be depressed. However, evidence before Court undermined Outule’s defense.
“The accused himself states he had known his HIV infection long time ago. This was not a sudden, shocking discovery that provoked an immediate and uncontrollable reaction. He had time to process the information,” indicated Justice Slave.
Judge Slave said Outule’s action was not only one of despair, “but of continued control and abuse”.
“He states that he would talk to her about it and on all the occasions he would assault her. This reveals a pattern of behavior where he used violence as a tool of communication and control, long before the final fatal attack”, highlighted Judge Slave.
On the fatal day Outule is said to have persistently telephoned the mother of his children. Phone calls Nthabiseng rejected as a way to avoid the accused. Outule is said to have hunted down his former lover to a clinic, where he anticipated to find her. And still Nthabiseng refused to talk with him.
“And when a third party, Kerapele Moyangwa advised him to wait, he proceeded with his plan. An act of removing a knife from his pocket and opening it was a deliberate and conscious escalation. The deceased’s reaction was one of fear and flight”, continued Francistown High Court Judge.
“The accused’s subsequent actions – chasing her, stabbing her multiple times in the front and back, continuing the assault even when confronted demonstrate a fixed purpose to kill her, not an act committed in the heat of sudden passion caused by fresh revelation.”
Judge Slave found Outule’s heinous action to be premeditated, targeted and sequential; and not provoked, sudden or that he was unaware of his actions and the consequences to follow.
“To find extenuating circumstances in a case with clear pattern of domestic violence, and where the final act was carried out with such calculated ferocity in a public place, would undermine the Court’s duty to protect the vulnerable of society.”
Francistown High Court Judge went on to say, “the fact that the deceased fled the accused’s violence just a month prior is a critical aggravating factor. The accused’s motive while deeply felt by him, was based on grievance he harboured for long time and which he had previously acted upon through violence. The HIV infection was not a trigger but a grudge.”
“You Lesego Outule shall be returned to prison and held in lawful custody and on a day stated by the President of the Republic of Botswana you will be hanged by the neck until you are dead,” pronounced Judge Slave.
