Three families claim body of murdered teen

THREE families from Bulawayo are claiming the body of a teenage girl who was allegedly murdered before being dumped in Iminyela suburb.

The teen's body was heavily decomposed, rendering positive identification virtually impossible.

One of the families yesterday said DNA testing would be undertaken to ascertain the family the woman came from.

DNA testing is conducted at the National University of Science and Technology's Applied Genetic Testing Centre.

Initially, four families were claiming the teen but one of them withdrew after locating their lost child in South Africa.

Of the three families, a family from Mabutweni suburb is convinced that the murdered teen could be their child.

Mr Thulani Nkomo yesterday told The Chronicle he is convinced that the body he saw at the United Bulawayo Hospitals mortuary is that of his 17-year-old daughter Nokwazi who is also known as Kelly.

"I'm 100 percent sure that it's my daughter. She had a mark on her left leg, that's how I managed to identify her. But we were told that two more families are also claiming the body. So we have to go for DNA testing for positive identification of the body. Facially, the body is unrecognisable" said Mr Nkomo.

"The police advised us to conduct the DNA testing as other families are said to be missing children of her age as well. To begin with, there were four families including ours that were missing their teenage children but another one withdrew their case after locating their child in South Africa."

Mr Nkomo said they had paid for the DNA profiling in the hope of concluding the difficult and anxious period.

His wife, Thembelani, said she had already submitted her blood samples to the DNA lab for profiling.

"On Friday I left my blood samples at the DNA lab for matching where we were charged $200 for the tissue matching. We managed to pay the money today and we are expecting the results before the end of the week," she said.

Thembelani said her daughter was last seen on May 19 and it had become common for her to spend days without coming home.

She said Nokwazi had become a problem child who would spend nights out only coming home when she felt like it.

"We tried our best to counsel her so she could realise the life she had chosen was not good for her. Her father works in Botswana and we once sat her down trying to talk her against wandering off without anyone knowing her whereabouts," said Thembelani.

"When we quizzed her about her whereabouts she would just say she was spending time with her friends who stay in Magwegwe suburb but we didn't know those friends."

She said as news broke that a young woman had been found dead they had to check if it was not their daughter.

The other two families could not be reached for comment yesterday.

Nust's AGTC chairperson Mr Zephaniah Dhlamini confirmed that they were assisting in the identification process.

"We just received the samples today. Police are saying there is one family which has matching things. But we had encouraged the police to bring all the families anyway. But what seemed to be the greatest constraint was the financial aspect. But we encouraged them to bring all the samples forward. As for the money we will see at a later date," said Mr Dhlamini.

Last week, the police called on members of the public to assist them in the identification of the dumped teenager's body.