THE family of Katlego Bereng, believed to be the person who was found dead in murderer and rapist Thabo Bester’s prison cell, is looking for answers.

According to his family, Bereng, who also used his father’s surname Mpholo and who lived in Bloemfontein, went missing in March 2022.

The family reported his disappearance to the police two months later, in May 2022. Almost a year later, the police contacted Bereng’s mother, Monica Matsie, about her son. She was asked to have two DNA tests, after which she was told that her son was dead.

South African Police Service (SAPS) spokesperson Athlenda Mathe confirmed that the family of the person's body found in the cell had been informed. Mathe said no further comment would be issued. 

Bester escaped from Mangaung Correctional Centre on 3 May 2022 by faking his death in a prison fire. SAPS confirmed in Parliament that three bodies were collected from the Free State mortuary by Bester’s partner, Nandipha Magudumana, the third of which was the one that was found in Bester’s cell, burned beyond recognition.

According to the postmortem report on the body found in the cell, the person died of a blunt force injury to the head before being smuggled into the cell and burned.

But Bereng’s family has received conflicting accounts from police officers about how Bereng died. One police officer told them that Bereng collapsed in Bloemfontein city centre and was taken to Pelonomi hospital, while another said he was injured and died in the hospital.

Bereng’s family describe him as “tall and slender”, but the body found in the cell was 1.45m, according to the postmortem.

The average adult male height in South Africa is 1.69m. A forensic pathologist previously explained to GroundUp that it was possible for a postmortem to get the height of a person wrong, especially since the body was in the foetal position.

It was not clear why the family had not yet been able to view and identify Bereng’s body.

They were expecting to be allowed to visit the morgue on Monday but were told that investigations were still taking place.

SAPS did not respond to our request for comment and the Free State Health Department, which runs the state morgue, said it could not comment on the Bester matter.

Bereng lived around the block in Mangaung from Senohe Matsoara, the prison warden facing charges of murder and aiding and abetting Bester’s escape. According to a close friend, Bereng knew Matsoara and they both frequented a local tavern, which was walking distance from their homes.

GroundUp visited Matsoara’s house on Monday, where his Volkswagen T-Roc R-line is still parked. TimesLIVE reported that he is thought to have bought the car, worth about R650 000, using money paid to him to help orchestrate Bester’s escape.

The same report indicates that Matsoara’s lifestyle changed considerably in the months before and after Bester’s escape.

Several people in Bloemfontein told GroundUp that they had little confidence in the police to solve missing person cases. One man we spoke to has a cousin who has been missing since August 2021. The case was reported to the police on the day he went missing, but there had not been any follow-up. According to the missing man’s mother, she was never given a case number.

Bereng grew up in the care of his grandmother, Alice Ralilateng. His parents had divorced when he was very young, and his mother remarried. His father, Batho Mpholo, lives in Johannesburg.

After announcing on Twitter that the body found in the cell had been identified as his son, Mpholo has received much media attention.

He is very active on Twitter, yet over the past year, he has made no previous mention of his son being missing. Mpholo has said that he implored the family to report Bereng missing after noticing that he hadn’t been regularly posting on Facebook.

The last public post on Bereng’s Facebook page was from July 2021. According to his aunt, this was because he had lost his phone.

When GroundUp visited Bereng’s household on Sunday, his mother and grandmother were distraught and angry.

Ralilateng said she needed to see the body.

“The DNA is fine for now, but we want closure. We need to know how our son ended up dead and burned in jail,” she said.

Bereng had never had any conflicts with the law, according to his family, and it came as a great shock to them that his life would end in a prison cell.

They wanted to hold a funeral for Bereng on Sunday but were unable to plan until the police confirmed that they could collect the body.

The family said it took two months before they reported the case to the police because Bereng would often visit relatives for long periods without letting anyone know. But when they realised he was not coming back, they went to the police.