Thabo Bester had an earlier escape plan, new evidence suggests – with a different decoy body

New evidence suggests Facebook rapist and killer Thabo Bester backed out of plans to escape from his maximum security jail in mid-April – potentially explaining why his doctor girlfriend allegedly claimed and abandoned two bodies in the weeks before he faked his death.

Records handed over to Parliament by G4S, the private company charged with running the Mangaung Correctional Centre (MCC) in Bloemfontein, provide powerful evidence of how the self-confessed fraudster received increasing levels of special treatment.

From December 2021 to the time of Bester’s 3 May 2022 escape, he is recorded as not receiving a single visitor – despite his alleged accomplice, Dr Nandipha Magudumana, stating in court papers that she visited him regularly.