On Tuesday, two men pled guilty to the murder of a South African couple before they drowned their son in a bathtub of boiling water. The two men, Sipho Mbele, 21, and Patrick Petrus Radebe, 24, broke into the couple’s home in Johannesburg. They then raped and shot Geraldine Viana, 43. After killing Geraldine, the two men beat her husband Tony, 53, with a machete and a golf club and then shot him in the head.
The suspects then admitted to tying the hands and feet of the couple’s 12-year-old son Amaro and drowning him in the bathtub. The men decided that they needed to kill the son because he would have been able to identify them to authorities. Forensic work done found that Amaro was held in boiling water while in the bathtub. The family dog was also killed prior to the men leaving the home.
A third man also pled guilty in the case but to a charge of robbery. That man, 20-year-old David Motaung, was with the other two during the incident. The Viana family employed Radebe as a gardener at the home and Mbele is the son of one of the servants of the family. It was reported that the men entered the home to exact revenge on Geraldine Viana for how she treated the employees of the house. The sentencing is scheduled for September 6.