When a detective broke down at the Madlanga commission in Pretoria last week while relaying how a colleague was murdered while investigating an unsolved mass shooting, the officer’s family in Soweto cried as they listened to his testimony.“Everyone was emotional; we started crying,” said the relative of the late Sgt Gavin Ndlovu, who was the lead investigator in the 2022 Mdlalose Tavern massacre in Soweto in which 16 people were killed.Ndlovu’s name came up at the commission when Witness A, whose identity is being protected, broke down as he told how the interference and threats he received while doing his work reminded him of Ndlovu, who was brutally gunned down while investigating the tavern massacre.“There is a member of ours that we worked very closely with when I joined the organised crime [unit] [in] Gauteng,” Say Witness A. [He] He was brutally murdered for his job. Sgt [Gavin] Ndlovu. “He was gunned down for doing that investigation, and we had hoped that we would see the people who killed him brought to book. But to this day we haven’t heard anything. So, when what happened to us happened, I was thinking about his situation to say we would end up in the situation that he found himself in,” he said.The wounds on my sister are a daily reminder of the moment she watched her father take his last breath.— Family relativeNdlovu was with his then-16-year-old daughter, who was also shot multiple times when the gunman ambushed her father. She survived.“The wounds on my sister are a daily reminder of the moment she watched her father take his last breath, and to this day [two years later], nothing has happened,” “The Ndlovu’s family is frustrated and disappointed with the police,” said the relative who asked to remain anonymous. “The police have failed us, and it’s painful. All we want is justice for him and for the victims of Mdlalose who were killed,” Sowetan reported previously that Ndlovu had been shot by a man wearing a uniform. Later, an internal police report revealed that Ndlovu’s murderer was someone who knew him. The family said Ndlovu’s daughter often relives the ordeal, recounting the harrowing events of that night. The family added that the older sister of Ndlovu’s daughter turned to drink to try and numb her pain at losing her father.“He told us that one of his colleagues would sell him out. He said if anything happened to him, he had no faith the matter would ever be solved. He was always peeping through the windows,” the relative recalled.At the time of Ndlovu’s death, suspects had been arrested for the Mdlalose tavern murders. However, the case stalled and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) dropped charges against the accused, saying there were no prospects of a successful prosecution.The NPA said the police did not continue with their investigations because witnesses feared for their lives.At Ndlovu’s funeral a close friend and colleague held up a police docket, claiming it was the reason he was killed. He told mourners that Ndlovu had been on the verge of cracking the Mdlalose case and had entrusted him with the document for safekeeping.The NPA’s Abram Mohlatlole confirmed to Sowetan on Friday that the case relating to Ndlovu’s murder had not yet been referred to them. When approached for an update on investigations into Ndlovu’s murder, Gauteng police spokesperson Cpt Tintswalo Sibeko said only that “the matter is still under investigation”.Sowetan
2025-10-27 05:28:06
Slain cop’s family relives murder ordeal as witness recalls murder
