Koekemoer Noeline

Age 15. Grade 10 learner at Sand du Plessis High School, was brutally raped and murdered on 7 April 2015 inside a flat on a smallholding in Bainsvlei, located on the immediate rural outskirts of Bloemfontein in the Free State province. The horrific attack transpired during the day while the young girl was home completely by herself. A thirty-six-year-old local laborer named Moses Maoka (also identified in court records as Moses Mahoka), who had previously worked for the landlord from whom Noeline and her mother rented their apartment, gained entry to the home under the guise of housebreaking and theft. Once inside, Maoka confronted the teenager, subjected her to a violent sexual assault, and subsequently strangled and bludgeoned her to death with a heavy blunt object. To delay discovery, the killer locked the bedroom door from the outside and stole her cellphone before fleeing the premises. The tragedy came to light later that evening at approximately 6:00 PM when her mother, Natasha Mans, returned home from work, grew suspicious of the locked room, and broke down the door only to discover her daughter’s body lying in a pool of blood.Following immediate investigations and public outcries, the South African Police Service tracked the suspect's movements and arrested Moses Maoka just over a week later in Bloemfontein. Further background tracking revealed that Maoka was a convicted repeat offender who had previously served time for armed robbery in the Northern Cape and had been released on parole in March 2013. The criminal proceedings were transferred to the Bloemfontein High Court, where Maoka pleaded guilty to the rape but falsely claimed the teenager was still alive when he left. Judge Johann Daffue dismissed his fabrications, noting that forensic post-mortem evidence and the onset of rigor mortis disproved his timeline. On 8 December 2015, the Bloemfontein High Court convicted Moses Maoka on all charges and sentenced him to life imprisonment for the murder and rape, alongside additional concurrent terms for housebreaking and theft.