This landed on my mailbox this morning so some of you might have seen it. I googled it just to make sure it's not a lie. It appeared on a publication in Botswana called "The Voice." It is fairly long and hardly makes for reverting reading but please bear with me. Also there is nothing new or unique about the story (HINT: Daily Sun) but I would like to have your thoughts on the issue rather than the story itself.
Reformed witch confesses to killing friend’s husband and children
As told to Innocent Tshukudu
An International Pentecostal Christian Church (IPCC) woman was this week devastated when her long-time best friend and neighbour revealed to her that she was responsible for the deaths of her husband and four children.
Gabotlhapiwe Mpuchani, 63, this week told The Voice that she wept bitterly when the woman that she had always confided in told her that she was the one who wiped off her family before she quit witchcraft to join IPCC. “I was so shocked and I told her to tell everyone what she had done before I forgave her. That was when she agreed to come to The Voice office with me,” she said as she introduced Eva Maphangu, the woman who willingly revealed her dark past.
The 74-year old Maphangu admitted that she was responsible for her friend’s misery, narrating the chronicle of events that led to the deaths of Mpuchani’s family members. Speaking in a tape recorded interview, Maphangu, who said she had refrained from evil after becoming a Christian, related her nocturnal activities and claimed that she had been sent by Mpuchani’s jealous relatives who wanted her husband’s cattle. “I was very close to the Mpuchani family because we were neighbours. Some of her relatives also practiced witchcraft and it was agreed that I was the best person to kill Gabotlhapiwe’s husband and children so that the relatives, whose names I can’t mention, may inherit Mpuchani’s cattle.”
Maphangu said she started killing the Mpuchanis in 1994 by casting an evil spell in their yard at night. Gabotlhapiwe’s husband then died after a short illness. “No one ever suspected that I was responsible for the family’s grief because I was very close and pretended to be sympathetic to the family. After the funeral, it was decided at one of our meetings with other witches that I should kill Mpuchani’s children lest they stand in the way and stopped the relatives from inheriting the family’s wealth.”
Mpuchani’s elder son, Innocent, died the following year before the family relocated to Gerald Estates. Maphangu said she visited the family once after their relocation and cast another spell that claimed the life of another family member. “It was during the day when I found Palalani moulding some bricks. I cast some muti and he became ill after I had left and he died later. His sister, Florence died the same way the following year before the family moved to Palapye.”
Maphangu said her last victim, Aaron, could have died earlier but there was a delay as she could not locate the family following their relocation to Tati-Siding.
“Last year I met Gabotlhapiwe in town and she told me that she lived in Tati-Siding and that night I told other witches who instructed me to look for her house and kill her son Aaron. I then went to Tati-Siding on a Sunday afternoon to visit Gabotlhapiwe as I had promised her earlier. I was carrying a Thokolosi on my back and when I got to Gabotlhapiwe’s gate the Thokolosi refused to get in as the yard was protected by the Holy Spirit. I then entered the yard alone and found Gabotlhapiwe who told me that she had joined IPCC. Her son was not well at the time and I left a bewitched soft drink which he drank and died after some weeks last year in July.
‘At the funeral, the pastor had announced that where an IPCC member lies no evil shall ever set foot. We visited the grave late at night with other witches to prove him wrong and when we got there, we saw a group of people who looked like angels wearing white robes singing church songs and we got scared and ran away.”
Maphangu said she became sick later as her eyes swelled and Mpuchani advised her to join IPCC so that she could be prayed for. “She was a very caring friend and she used to give me money to buy food and at some point she bought me bags of tea worth P1 700 so I could start my own business. On the night that I had gone to church my Thokolosi came and severely beat me up for betraying the evil. Other witches had also come to pick me up but failed as I had been born-again. That was the last time I ever saw the Thokolosi.”
Maphangu said she got her Thokolosi from Zambia where she was married many years ago. “My husband and I were teachers in Northern Rhodesia and that was where he had introduced me to witchcraft. When my son Ernest was born, I was ordered to kill him so that he could be turned into a Thokolosi. I never had another child after that and my husband dumped me for another woman and that was when I came back to Botswana and, until last year, I had been carrying my invincible Thokolosi son, Ernest on my back.”
The remorseful Maphangu said she decided to confess to Mpuchani as, after her spiritual cleansing, she regretted everything she had ever done.
Superintendent Silton Fidzani of Kutlwano Police said the constitution does not recognize superstition and that there was nothing the law could do to punish confessed witches.
Source: http://www.thevoicebw.com/online/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=135&Itemid=89 (you need to scroll down a bit to get this particular story)
I am not religious and not even a church-going person for that matter but I do believe in God. As I read this story the most prevalent thought in my mind was. There is no greater power than God. Only God gives and takes life. If God says it isn't so then it isn't so.
What are your thoughts on all this? How and why does evil and it’s offspring like witchcraft thrive? Or do they?