I was jailed for a crime I did not commit: Thabo Bester’s letter to best friend unearthed

22/04/2023

2 minutes read

How Thabo Bester fled to Zimbabwe after escape from SA prison

A local publication reveals that convicted murderer Thabo Bester wrote a letter to his childhood best friend Zunaid Kock in 2013 from Mangaung Correctional Centre maintaining he was innocent.

The “Facebook Rapist” Thabo Bester also revealed in the letter to his childhood friend that “the world is not a truthful mirror of who we are”.

“I was in prison for a crime that I never committed, and I was so hurt by the stories in the media about me for most of it is not true,” he said.

In the letter he encourages Kock to have a positive attitude and to make a success out of his fitness business, writing: “The world is a great mirror. It reflects back to you what you are. If you are loving, if you are friendly, if you are helpful, the world will prove loving and friendly and helpful to you.”

He also says he knows his friend will never make the mistakes he has made in life, but sometimes the world is not a truthful mirror of who we are.

According to the publication Bester met his childhood friend Zunaid Kock at Danie Theron Primary School in Johannesburg in Grade 3 in 1999.

It is believed the pair were best friends, Bester spent most of his school holidays in Kock’s home and they also visited Bester at Mangaung Correctional Centre.

He also discusses the important role of his grandmother, who loved him and cared for him when his mother abandoned him.

“My grandmother shaped me in so many ways. She didn’t have education, but she had superb values.”

The convicted murderer also admits he struggled in prison and is ashamed of how he failed the people dear to him, including God.

“I’m lonely and I feel rejection running through [my] soul. I’d finally hit a wall. Everything that I had not been dealing with hit me like a ton of bricks.

“It was a time of terrible fear, darkness, and despair. I’d lay in bed for hours, trying to get enough energy to get up and start my day.

But Forensic Psychologist Dr Gerard Labuschagne, who’s an expert with several years experience of in profiling offenders said Thabo Bester’s the letter reveals tendencies associated with a conman.

Labuschagne also says the letter seemed is his attempt to con someone: “Thabo Bester at his best,” he noted.

He added that Bester’s claims that he was taught to respect women were “laughable” seeing that most of his victims were women.

“It’s amazing he claims religious themes, he probably felt those will resonate with the person he is trying to manipulate. I would check every fact he claims.”

Labuschagne said then 23-year-old Bester admitted in an interview that he killed his ex-girlfriend Nomfundo Tyhulu, but added it was an “accident” that occurred during a fight

The Kocks, who they were listed on Bester’s prison documents as his relatives, told News24 they received a phone call from an official from Mangaung Correctional Centre that Bester died in a fire in his cell, when he “staged his death” in May 2022.