‘Baby thief’ had miscarriage

The woman accused of offering to buy a baby from a Qwaqwa woman and then stealing the child after the mother refused to sell it had suffered a miscarriage and was apparently trying to replace the baby lost in the failed pregnancy with the stolen one, the Tseki Magistrate Court was told.

According to the police, Esther Tsotetsi, who lives in Johannesburg with her Nigerian boyfriend, had also tried to adopt a baby. But, it appeared, she was not prepared for the sometimes long periods one must wait before they can get a baby to adopt and instead allegedly opted to buy or steal one.

The details were disclosed when Tsotetsi and her co-accused, Matshimo Mokoena, 84, appeared in court on Wednesday this week where their case was postponed to July16 to give prosecutors more time get reports from social workers that they need to use in the matter.

Tsotetsi will remain in custody. Mokoena, who is great-grandmother to the baby Tsotetsi allegedly stole, is out on free bail granted by the magistrate because the police delayed bringing her to court beyond the 48 hours permitted by law.

Tsotetsi, who reportedly has three girls from previous relationships, has indicated she will apply for bail but the police have said they will oppose the application.
Warrant Officer Motebang Ramaisa, who investigated the matter, said Tsotetsi was not a good candidate for bail after she allegedly tried to deny her identity in an attempt to mislead the police that she was not the person they were seeking.

Tsotetsi and Mokoena have been appearing separately in court before the decision this week to try them together.

The police allege that Tsotetsi last month came to Mokoena and her great-granddaughter Nthabeleng’s homestead looking for a child to buy.
Nthabeleng refused to sell her baby. But then Tsotetsi did not leave the homestead. Instead, she put up there for the night.

The next morning Mokoena gave R200 to Nthabeleng to go buy some groceries. It is not clear where Mokoena, who was apparently broke and whose only source of income is her government old age pension, got the money to buy groceries.

But upon her return from the shopping trip, Nthabeleng found only Mokoena at home and her son and Tsotetsi gone. She raised alarm leading to the arrest of her grandmother.

The police suspect Mokoena, who it has not yet been established whether she was known to Tsotetsi from before, facilitated the theft of the baby in exchange for cash.

Tsotetsi is originally from Qwaqwa but from another village, further away from Matebeleng. She is not married and lives in the upmarket Johannesburg suburb of Bryanston.

The police were able to track down Tsotetsi after a tip-off from someone who called from Johannesburg and gave the police a full description of the person who was keeping Bokang, her workplace and where she was keeping the boy.

Acting on the information Ramaisa was able to track Tsotetsi to the shop where she works at Johannesburg’s Park Station intermodal transport facility and arrest her.