Jailbreak: How celebrity doctor helped fake Thabo Bester’s death in prison

By  Jeff Anthony

Novelist, Big Brother Africa 2 Kenyan representative

What you need to know:

• A burnt body, forged documents, bribed prison officials and a carefully planned escape helped convicted murderer Thabo Bester evade authorities.
• Nandi Magudumana’s relationship with Thabo Bester became central to a complex plot involving a fake funeral and a prison escape.

A loud bang reverberated through the passageways of the Mangaung Correctional Centre's segregation unit at 3am on May 3, 2022. Plumes of smoke and the smell of petrol filled the cells as inmates scrambled to cover their faces with blankets. Inside Cell 35, officials discovered a body burnt beyond recognition. At 5.10am, the prison doctor declared the victim dead. Police officers arrived at 6.45am, inspected the cell and left to compile a report.

The South African Department of Correctional Services issued a statement announcing that infamous convicted rapist and murderer Thabo Bester had committed suicide by setting himself alight. That declaration was misguided; Thabo had faked his death and manipulated his girlfriend, Nandi, into a “cycle of compliance” to orchestrate one of the most audacious prison escapes in South African history.

Nandipha 'Nandi' Magudumana, an attractive celebrity doctor and Wits Medical School graduate, had a private practice in Johannesburg's affluent financial district of Sandton, “the richest square mile in Africa”. As a cosmetic physician, she founded Optimum Medical Aesthetics Solutions, which provided non-surgical aesthetic treatments, including Botox, hairline restoration and chemical peels, to an affluent clientele. Her roster of 500 prosperous clients included former Miss Universe Zozibini Tunzi and actor Moshe Ndiki.

Her medical practice in Sandton was surrounded by Sandton City Mall, the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and multinational companies. Nandi rented two mansions four kilometres away in Hyde Park, adjacent to the home of billionaire South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa. Her monthly rent was R60,000 per house. She drove two Range Rovers, twin Porsches and a black Mercedes-Benz S63 AMG valued at R1.7 million.

Due to Nandi's hybristophilia, a temporary pathological abnormality that dominates over logic, she fell victim to Thabo's masterful manipulation. She was “tactfully assuaged by his smooth-talking charisma and inflated self-confidence”.

Thabo, a vastly skilled con artist, used “intense coercive control”, “emotional reward mechanism” and “eventual trauma-bonding” to systematically coerce his victims. He amassed 300 criminal complaints as a teenager and, between 2009 and 2011, used Facebook to lure unsuspecting women with fabricated modelling adverts and created an Africa’s Next Top Model scam.

He swindled women, including TV personality Pearl Thusi, robbing them and, in at least two instances, raped and stabbed them at Westville and Umhlanga City Lodge in Durban. He subsequently murdered his victim, Nomfundo Tyhulu, at the One&Only resort in Cape Town. According to The Thabo Bester Story: The Facebook Rapist, the Celebrity Doctor and Escape from Cell 35, Thabo had served a decade of his sentence, which was life imprisonment plus 55 years.

On April 7, 2022, Nandi arrived at Free State Forensic Pathology Services, a dilapidated government morgue in Bloemfontein, and displayed forged documents to claim the body of her “father”. She left with the body of an unidentified man and, at dawn, drove her white Porsche to a cemetery in Bloemfontein, filled a coffin with rotten animal meat and held a fake burial.

Twenty-five kilometres away in Mangaung, the second-largest privately run prison globally, Thabo was making preparations to escape. When inmates feared for their safety, they applied for confinement in a segregation unit, an area where inmates are kept in single cells. Nandi visited Thabo in the early hours of April 16.

She promised to pay Senohe Matsoara, the supervisor in charge of the segregation unit, R7 million, and Teboho Lipholo, the prison CCTV technician, R2.5 million. Tieho Makhotsa, a central control-room operator, and several other officials accepted smaller bribes. Thabo's objective was to escape over the Easter weekend, between April 15 and April 18, but the mission was aborted, and the unidentified body was dumped in Bloemfontein’s Modder River.

The second attempt was scheduled for the long Workers’ Day weekend at the beginning of May. On April 23, 2022, Nandi claimed the body of another unidentified man from the National Hospital in Bloemfontein. On this occasion, a fake funeral was held in Bloemfontein’s Bloemside Phase 2 Township after Nandi filled the coffin with 10 bags of maize meal.

On April 29, Senohe drove a rented pickup to the prison complex; at the back was a TV cabinet containing a large box with the decoy body. The next day, Thabo's application to be moved to the segregation unit was approved, and he relocated to Cell 35 at the end of a corridor, obscured from CCTV cameras and close to an emergency exit.

In the afternoon, Lipholo disconnected the power to the CCTV recording system and pushed the body on a wheelie bin to Cell 35. The corpse was doused with petrol, particularly the face and hands, to ensure identifiable features would be completely burnt. Thabo's mattress was placed on top of the corpse and soaked in petrol. On May 3, 2022, the cell was set alight after Thabo exited through an emergency door and fled the prison on foot, dressed as a prison warder.

The burnt body was driven to the Free State Forensic Pathology morgue and, the next day, the police received the autopsy report. The forensic pathologists discovered that there were no signs of smoke inhalation, there were fatal blunt-force injuries to the head, and the body had been dead before the fire began. These revelations led the police to change the inquest from suicide to homicide.

During Nandi's birthday celebrations on September 4, 2022, Thabo became violent towards her, repeatedly slapped her and threatened to kill her. By September 2023, Thabo, who had changed his name to Tom Kelly 'TK' Nkwana, had used Nandi's construction company, Arum Holdings, to defraud six women of an amount totalling R22.8 million. Under duress, Nandi fled with Thabo, but their vehicle, which was en route to Kenya, was intercepted in Arusha, Tanzania, and they were extradited back to Johannesburg.

The writer is a novelist, Big Brother Africa 2 Kenyan representative and founder of Jeff's Fitness Centre (@jeffbigbrother).