Hume Lynne

The tragic series of events unfolded in the coastal town of Ballito, north of Durban in KwaZulu-Natal, centering around forty-seven-year-old estate agent Lynne Hume. As a director of a property letting agency, Lynne Hume was thrilled to have finalized an exceptionally large leasing agreement with an IT businessman and former intelligence consultant, Muziwendoda "Muzi" Kunene. Kunene had presented her with a cheque for R637,350 to secure a three-year luxury rental at the exclusive Simbithi Eco-Estate in nearby Salt Rock. On Tuesday afternoon, October 23, 2007, Lynne discovered the cheque had been flagged by the bank as fraudulent due to insufficient funds. She immediately drove out to the Simbithi flat to confront her tenant and resolve the matter, swiping her security card at the estate gate at 12:21 PM. It was the last time she was seen alive. Upon arriving at the apartment, Lynne was ambushed by Muziwendoda Kunene and his hired accomplices, Mphakamiseni Khumalo and Mumukeleni Khoza. Her hands were bound behind her back with wire, her head was covered with a blanket, and she was forced down the apartment stairs into a vehicle. During her captivity, she courageously asked her abductors if they were going to kill her. To mask her disappearance and buy time to cash stolen cheques, her captors used her cellphone to send bizarre text messages to her husband, Mark Hume, and her colleagues, pretending she had suddenly left for a health hydro in Cape Town to take time out. Bound and helpless, Lynne was driven on a grueling, hours-long journey from the coast of KwaZulu-Natal all the way to a remote, muddy gravel road off the main route near Kestell in the eastern Free State. There, on that rainy evening, she was placed into the passenger seat of her own white Volvo, where she was shot with a 9mm pistol. The perpetrators immediately doused the vehicle and set it ablaze. Passersby noticed the smoking remains on October 24, 2007, discovering a body so intensely charred inside the burnt-out car that it required months of advanced DNA testing to achieve formal, positive identification. The forensic trail and tracking of Lynne's stolen cheques quickly exposed the plot. A critical break in the investigation came when Muziwendoda Kunene’s own son, Msebenziwenkosi, turned state witness and detailed the harrowing mechanics of the kidnapping and subsequent cover-up. In May 2009, the Bloemfontein High Court shattered the defense's fabricated alibis. Judge Mojalefa Rampai ruled that the execution of Lynne Hume was a cold-blooded, meticulously planned murder orchestrated by Kunene as the clear mastermind. Muziwendoda Kunene was sentenced to life imprisonment plus an additional thirty years for murder, kidnapping, robbery, and fraud. His primary accomplices, Khumalo and Khoza, were each sentenced to twenty-three years behind bars.