Got him!

After almost a month chasing a killer with the blood of a Molepolole woman and her granddaughter on his hands, the police believe they have got their man.

In a major breakthrough, the cops swooped on 34-year-old Tshepiso Letsididi in Mochudi last Friday.

In Molepolole Magistrates Court two days later, although they did not go into detail, the prosecution revealed Letsididi is the main suspect in a third murder and has several ongoing rape cases before court.

His latest brush with the law dates back to Sunday 11 November, when Gobona Penekane Mhaladi, 54, and her 10-year-old grandchild, Laofa Kate Mmamorepo, were found tied up, a rope bound tightly around their necks.

They were discovered by the little girl’s mother, Mimmy Mmamorepo, 33, who had popped round to check on the duo at the old woman’s home in Magokotswane ward after failing to reach them on the phone for two days straight. She arrived to find her worst fear’s brutally confirmed: her mother and daughter dead.

In a previous interview with The Voice, Mhaladi’s older brother, Ramsden Boykie Sechele, 77, said their lifeless bodies were found in separate bedrooms, bounded with their hands tied behind their backs.

It is whispered that during the police interview shortly after his arrest, Letsididi claimed he had not meant to kill them and only tied them up to stop them from screaming for help.

As well as the double murder, the Mogogoru ward resident is facing a further charge of robbery, having allegedly helped himself to a Huawei cellphone before fleeing the crime scene in Mhaladi’s Grey Toyota Camry.

The vehicle was located the next day (Monday 12 November) parked up on the roadside at Kopong junction along the Molepolole-Gaborone road with Letsididi’s belongings found inside.

By 17 November, Letsididi’s face was splashed all over the police’s Facebook page as a wanted person, starting a 16-day manhunt that came to an end last week.

During Monday’s arraignment, the prosecutor, Inspector Thema Marumolo dropped another bombshell, announcing the suspect has a murder case pending before High Court, numerous rape cases and a threat-to-kill matter.

Admitting he didn’t have the details at hand, Marumolo promised to return with more solid information at the next sitting, scheduled for 23 January.

Unimpressed, his face obscured beneath a Covid-19 mask, a scathing Letsididi seethed, “In the next sitting I want the prosecutor to avail all the charge sheets for the matters he had just mentioned ‘go raya gore o atlholela batho leso’ it means he sentence people to death.”

Immediately after the case was adjourned, he was hurriedly escorted to the downstairs holding cells, the deceased’s relatives visibly upset that they did not get a good look at the man accused of killing their loved ones.