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Dina gets life
28/06/2007 11:24 - (SA)
Verashni Pillay and Sapa
Cape Town - Dina Rodrigues was sentenced to life in prison in the Cape High Court on Thursday for the murder of baby Jordan Leigh Norton.
Two of her co-accused, Sipho Mongezi Mfazwe and Mongezi Bobotyane also received life sentences. In addition they got ten years' jail each for armed robbery.
The packed public gallery applauded the sentences so loudly that the judge and two assessors were forced to leave the court immediately.
The two other youths involved in the murder, Zanethemba Gwada and Bonginkosi Sigenu were each effectively sentenced to 15 years for the murder and the robbery combined.
The robbery related to items that the four took from the Norton home after the murder.
A life sentence meant 25 years in jail with the possibility of parole only after the whole terms had been served.
Sentencing was postponed several times for a number of reasons, including missing pre-sentencing reports and an outburst by a drunk man in court.
Jordan Leigh Norton was killed in June 2005, when the four men entered the infant's home, posing as delivery men for a courier service.
Once inside, Bobotyane stabbed the baby in the neck, leaving her on a bed to bleed to death.
The men had been hired for R10 000 by Rodrigues to kill the baby in an apparent love triangle involving the child's father, schoolteacher Neil Wilson.
Wilson had been involved with the baby's mother, Natasha Norton, before dating Rodrigues.
- News24
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