True Crime South Africa

Episode 164 The Murder of Tshepang Pitse

When medical student Tshepang Pitse suddenly stops answering her dad's calls and messages he presumes his daughter is deep in her studies, but when a horrific discovery is made in her boyfriend's freezer, a terrible tale of abuse and manipulation spills out. (24-hr trauma helpline 082-821-3447) (Support the show on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/truecrimesa) (Support the show on PayPal https://www.paypal.me/truecrimesa)

Duration:: 38m
Broadcast on:: 09 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: aac

It doesn't matter who we are, change happens. I've let light. Sometimes it's forced on us. You know there's more than one baby. Sometimes we choose it. There's a term where you just need to jump. But when it happens, it changes everything. I just stopped the drugs on the Sunday. So how do we respond to it? Join me, Rudal Antpun, to explore that in our podcast, When Change Happens. Listen at ChangePodcasts.co.ca. The woman's stomach rambles and she wonders whether he or mine, if she checks the fridge for something to eat. As she rummages through packages in the freezer, one falls open. And at first, she's sure her eyes are deceiving her. It absolutely cannot be possible that she's seeing what she thinks she is. Then, reality sets in. He's coming back, and if he finds her there, she has no idea what he might do. This is True Crime South Africa. I'm Nicole Engelbrecht and you're listening to episode 164, the murder of Chippang Pizzi. And it's that time again, when I highlight the latest series to watch on CBS Justice, the home of True Crime on TV. And from Monday the 9th of September, you can catch seasons one and two of killer relationship with Faith Jenkins, back-to-back and exclusive to CBS Justice. As a former criminal prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, host Faith Jenkins uses her unique professional expertise to guide viewers through romances that went tragically wrong. Watch a standalone episode Monday to Friday at 9.20am, 1.40pm, and 8pm on DSTV Channel 170 and Star Set 2.22. And a huge thank you to CBS Justice for sponsoring this episode of True Crime South Africa. Since 2019, True Crime South Africa has been telling the stories of the victims of violent crime in South Africa. The podcast is independent. That means no big or even little corporates find it. And that's just the way I like it. And it's the only independent podcast in South Africa that consistently charts in the top 10. Keeping a podcast like this going is time-consuming. And for the most part, it remains a one-woman process. It's me. I'm the one woman. You. Yes, you. Other reason this podcast continues to flourish and help bring in tips on missing person and cold cases. If you'd like to help keep the show running, please consider supporting our sponsors, signing up to Patreon or PayPal, follow the show on the socials, as the kids say, and share it with your fellow partners in crime. You can find our social links and learn more about our sponsors at True Crime South Africa forward slash Donate. Shout out to this week's Patreon and PayPal Superstars. A huge thank you goes out to Shanaaz Asmal Matara, Dick Cummings, and Bear Up for your support on Patreon. Thank you so much everyone. Your support really does make a huge difference. Patreon supporters get one additional exclusive episode a month, a shout out on the pod, and other exclusive content including Q&A's with me as and when it's available. It's a minimum of $1 a month. I think you should do it. Please. And thank you. Kaaba. Although all the cases I cover on this podcast touch me in different ways, occasionally while researching a case, the details make my blood boil to such an extent that I have to take a break from it and come back, because I know I won't be able to cover it in a way that properly honours the victim if I don't get back to center first. This is one such case. The perpetrator in this case was just so absolutely self absorbed and so completely remorseless and the victim was so utterly failed, abused and manipulated that it seemed that even in death she was let down. I think another reason this one hit me so hard was because the perpetrator treated his partner the victim like his property, like something that could be disposed of and used and abused as he pleased. And I'm seeing so many cases in the media at the moment that seem to present that exact type of attitude from the perpetrators. I will warn you that this episode includes some very graphic details about the desecration of the victim's body and you should listen with caution. My sources for this case include an episode of Emi Buzo on showmax, several videos from the trial as well as several media articles. So let's get into episode 164, the murder of Japan Pizza. The following episode may contain sensitive material including descriptions of violence, sexual assault or graphic descriptions of injuries to victims. If you feel you may be triggered by such material, please consider this before accessing our content. To access trauma counseling or services, please see the help line information on our show notes. Japan Pizza was born on the 3rd of March 1998 to her mother and father Walter. There's not much information about Chippung's very early years, but it appears that her mom and dad separated when she was look quite young and her sister Chen Hallo was born from a different father to Walter. Chippung remained very close to her dad though. There are conflicting reports and a lot of unconfirmed information around Chippung's mom, but it appears that the woman had worked as a nurse in the United Kingdom for a while, but in 2013 she passed away. There are mentions in various sources including some attributed to Chen Hallo that her mom was the victim of a murder by someone she was in a relationship with at the time. There are also other statements about this murder, including some that points to the girl's mom having been murdered possibly by certain people to gain access to an inheritance she would leave behind, which may have included a property in Vahtukluv as well as policies from her employer in the United Kingdom. Either way, by the time Chippung was 15 years old, her mom had passed away. Her father Walter says that after the funeral he was also ill, and although the girls were at his house, when members of Chippung's mother's family suddenly arrived at the house saying that they were taking the girls to go live with them, he didn't really have the strength to argue with them. Over the years that followed, it's alleged that the girls were moved between an older aunt on her mother's side, then an uncle, and then their aunt, Grace Clavanwane, arrived one day and took the girls from the uncle in what Walter describes as an aggressive manner. Walter is of the opinion that physical custody of the girls was so desired by certain members of their mother's family because of the inheritance they may have been due. It would later be alleged that members of the Clavanwane family had eventually gained ownership of the house in Vahtukluv. Tienolo would later describe the time she'd spent with her mother's family as a nightmare. When the girls were taken to live with Grace, Chippung became closer to her cousin, Grace's son Flavio. Tienolo explains that it wasn't long after they'd moved there that she noticed that the family seemed to be encouraging Flavio and Chippung to spend time together, and they were actively pushing Tienolo out of the family. Walter describes Chippung as always having been studious and very committed to his schoolwork, and perhaps inspired by her mother's career as a nurse, when Chippung matriculated, she began to study medicine at its university. By this time, Flavio, who was three years older than Chippung, was close to finishing his own degree in actuarial science, and both had moved to Kateng to be close to the university. Only a select number of people knew the truth about the nature of Flavio and Chippung's relationship at this time, and according to Tienolo, her sister and cousin had actually been in a relationship since 2016. Now, I will say that there are many sources that say that after Chippung turned 18, she and Flavio actually married, but I cannot find a single source that confirms this to be true without a doubt. And in court, Chippung was referred to as Flavio's girlfriend. Tienolo says that she had been aware of the relationship for many years, and she told her sister time and again that she didn't agree with it, and it was unhealthy. But she says she felt as though her sister was almost under a spell of some kind, and instead of taking her concerns to heart, she pulled away from her, and their communication became less and less frequent. What is very clear in retrospect is that being in a relationship with her cousin was not the only secret Chippung was hiding during this time. She was also being abused by Flavio on a regular basis in many different ways. Flavio would later claim that in 2017, he'd been introduced to cocaine at a party, and then he'd progressed to using crystal meth, which became a habitual use problem for him. He would also claim that Chippung had also used drugs with him, but everyone else outside of his family who knew the young woman had never seen any signs of drug use. And although it's not impossible, she may have been using cocaine as a stimulant to keep up with the mass of work medical students face. She certainly would have struggled to maintain the excellent results she got in her time at university if she had indeed been a habitual crystal meth user. In retrospect, Flavio had displayed all the red flags of a domestic abuser. He'd actively isolated Chippung from her family on her dad's side, as well as her sister, he'd encouraged her to stay away from her friends, and even ended up threatening some of the friends who'd advised her to leave him. He controlled her finances, insulted and emotionally abused her, and also physically assaulted her on several occasions. Some of the most horrendous incidents of abuse that would later be noted included him holding her face against a heated two-plate stove as punishment for something she'd said. There was also a message that was later found where he told Chippung when she was at a friend's house. If she wasn't home in 10 minutes, he was going to cut all her hair off. She had rushed home, but sure enough, the next time the friend saw Chippung, her head had been shaved to the scalp. Despite Flavio's attempts to keep Chinolo away from Chippung, her sister had tried to get help. She'd contacted a few different people during this time describing the type of abuse her sister was being subjected to and begging someone to tell her how to convince her sister to leave Flavio. Chippung's friends were also terrified that Flavio would kill her and supported her on each occasion when the young woman did leave and go stay with her father, but she would always be convinced by Flavio to come home. Although Flavio was described as a loner and a bookworm, he was also described by many as being charming and manipulative. He was highly intelligent, and having known Chippung her entire life, he knew better than anyone, all the buttons he needed to press to get her to do what he wanted. Walter says that Chippung would come home to stay with him occasionally, but she'd never said anything about having a boyfriend or being in an abusive relationship, and he had absolutely no idea that she was in a relationship with Flavio. He knew the young man but hadn't seen him in years at that point, and even when he would occasionally fetch Chippung from his house, Walter never imagined he was doing so in any other context than being a helpful cousin. Despite his alleged drug habits, Flavio was doing pretty well for himself. He had a job in which he earned 20,000 random months and allegedly gave half of this to his mother, and according to him, another 2,000 ran to Chippung to cover some of her expenses. Chippung had her own money too, and Flavio seemed to feel that he was entitled to her income whenever he saw fit. The pair often fought when Flavio would take Chippung's debit card without her knowledge and use it to buy what he wanted. In September 2021, something happened between the couple that resulted in Chippung leaving Flavio and going to live with her father for two months. Flavio would claim that he discovered that Chippung was cheating on him, but there's no proof of this outside of his own claims, which at the time seemed baseless, at best, in my opinion. Regardless of why, Walter confirmed that his daughter had been living with him for two months in 2021. Again, he knew nothing about difficulties she was experiencing with a boyfriend, much less that the boyfriend was her cousin, Flavio. In early October 2021, though, she called her dad while he was at work and told him that she was leaving. When he got home, he was surprised to find that Chippung had emptied out her entire closet. He said she usually left clothes there for when she came to visit, but on that day, it was like she hadn't intended ever returning. We don't unfortunately know why Chippung did this, but considering she had once again been convinced to return to Flavio's home, perhaps this was an instruction from him to somehow prove her commitment to him. But that's nothing more than a guess from me. Over the next day or two, Walter spoke to his daughter on the phone and he said she seemed fine. But then from the 6th of October, she stopped answering his calls. He said that when she was studying, she did turn her phone off and he would usually leave a voicemail for her and she would call back when she took a break, but that didn't happen. All of his messages and voicemails went unanswered, and Walter wasn't the only one who couldn't get hold of Chippung. Her friends, messages and calls also went unanswered from that day on. We only have Flavio's version to go on to explain why Chippung had so suddenly disappeared, but we do now know that the reason for Chippung not answering anyone's calls was because she couldn't. She was dead and Flavio had killed her. Initially, Flavio would claim that Chippung's death had been an accident. He claimed that they'd argued because he'd taken her debit card without her consents and he'd pushed her and she'd hit her head on the stove. He claimed that he was enraged with her and when she'd gotten back up, he'd plunged a knife into her neck and killed her. He said that he panicked and tried to load her body into his car, but he couldn't lift her on his own, so he'd left the house and purchased drugs with her money. After using Crystal meth, he claimed he'd come up with the idea to dismember her body to make it easier to dispose of. He said that he pulled her into the shower and with the butcher's knife, proceeded to cut Chippung's body into pieces. Over the next few days, he'd allegedly thrown her torso into the clip-brother, buried her head in a field in Ranfantine, and then, as if the aforementioned was not horrific enough, Flavio wrapped Chippung's arms and legs in black bags and placed them into his freezer. He then meticulously cleaned the kitchen and the shower of all of her blood. Records and witness testimony would show that over the next few days and weeks, Flavio registered profiles on several dating apps and openly flirted with and dated various women on social media too. His neighbors would say that there was a different woman at his house almost every night during that time. He also purchased copious amounts of drugs with what was left in Chippung's account. Despite this wild and seemingly carefree attitude Flavio was giving off, he was clearly still very worried about the terrible contents of his freezer. His landlord said that there was an occasion when their streets had a power outage, and although everyone was annoyed, Flavio had absolutely lost his mind, behaving as though the lack of electricity was a matter of life and death for him. Of course, now we understand why, but at the time the landlord just thought it was incredibly weird behavior. Because Chippung was so deeply isolated from so many of her friends and family, and because Walter didn't really know who friends in Johannesburg, her absence would go unreported for more than a month. But Flavio was still partying and bringing women back to his home every night, and on the 12th of November 2021, he would make a mistake. That would bring his carefully balanced house of cards crashing down. On that morning, Flavio woke up with a new woman in his bed. They were both hungry, so he said he was going to go to the shop to get some bread, and they could make some breakfast. While he was gone, the woman wandered into the kitchen to see if she could get a start on a meal for them. She opened Flavio's freezer and started to dig through the packages. But what she saw when she started to open the bags rooted her to the spot. At first, she thought she was looking at a doll, or at least part of it, and briefly wondered why the man would have a doll in the freezer. But soon, she realised she was looking at a human hand. She ran out of the house and down the road, screaming into the closest open house and begged the residents to call the police. There's no mention of whether Flavio was already back by the time police arrived, or if he arrived to find him there. But either way, as soon as police saw what was in the freezer, he was arrested. Walter remembered hearing on the radio on the sirteenth that a man had been arrested after body parts were found in his freezer. But besides the horror of the story, he thought nothing of it. The accused's identity wasn't revealed, and even if it had been at the time, Walter would never have made the leap to think that the victim was his daughter. After all, he still had no idea she'd been in a relationship with her cousin. Over the next few days, he would hear about the case each day on the news, but at no point was the accused's name mentioned. Then, on the 15th of November, Genolo phoned Walter and asked him if he knew where Chippung was. He confidently said she was at university in Johannesburg. Then, Genolo asked if he'd heard about the man in Johannesburg who killed his girlfriend. Walter said he had. What followed was a conversation that Walter had never dreamed he would have. Not only did he learn that the man in question was Flavio, but he also learned that Chippung had been in a relationship with him. And that means there was a good possibility it was her body parts that had been found in his freezer. It doesn't appear to have taken much for Flavio to admit to the police that it was his girlfriend in the freezer. He was, however, very unwilling to admit anything more after that. And he would also attempt to take his life on two occasions after his arrest. After his admission, he did lead police to Chippung's skull. And despite several days of searching the clip river where he said he disposed of her torso, nothing was recovered. Despite Flavio's confirmation that the remains did belong to Chippung, the police couldn't simply take his word for it. Chippung did have tattoos on her arms, which her family members would be asked to identify in photographs. The skull was already far too decomposed for facial recognition though, and so other methods would be employed. Fingerprints were taken and compared to those held by hermaphairs. This confirmed that both arms indeed belonged to Chippung, but her family would have an agonizing weight until well into 2022 for DNA to finally confirm that all of the body parts had come from the same person, and that person was indeed Chippung Pizza. Between the time that he was arrested and the time that Chippung's remains were finally properly identified, Flavio was taken in for psychiatric assessment, and by the middle of 2022, he was declared fit to stay on trial, and the wheels of justice were finally ready to turn. Although Chippung's family had wanted to wait until her torso was recovered to lay her to rest, by July that year they took the decision to bury what they had of her. I cannot even imagine what a difficult decision this must have been, but if Father Walter said that it was harder to continue to leave her in the mortuary, so they held a funeral. They continue to hold on to hope that one day the rest of her remains will be found and they'll decide what to do at that point. Initially, Flavio agreed to plead guilty to the charges against him, including murder, but he presented as his plea statement, the version in which Chippung's death had happened in the heat of the moment and had not been premeditated. The prosecution was not happy with this. The guideline sentence for murder that is not premeditated is 15 years. Even with other sentences for the other charges, which included violation of a corpse and obstructing the course of justice, Flavio could be eligible for parole in just seven and a half years. With the evidence they'd collected about the history of abuse in the relationship, the prosecution strongly believed that this was a case of premeditation, and so they refused to accept the plea and the trial began in earnest with the prosecution witnesses. It seems that Flavio had believed he had greater control over Chippung than he actually did, because as soon as the prosecution started to present witnesses who testified that Flavio had been violent toward Chippung throughout their relationship, he seemed to change his mind about his plea. One of these witnesses was a good friend of Chippung's, who also stated, and the prosecution provided text message evidence of this, that a few months before Chippung was murdered, Flavio had tried to start a sexual relationship with her and she turned him down. During his next court appearance, Flavio's attorney told the court that his client wished to change his plea and his statement. He then admitted that he had planned the murder of Chippung Pizzet. From September that year when she'd left to stay with her father, Flavio said he'd been trawling the internet, looking for ways to kill Chippung and dispose of her body. He claimed that he decided to do this as punishment to her for cheating on him. He still said that the actual crime did happen the way he said, but he claimed the main difference was that the fight had been unplanned, but once he saw her seriously injure her head when she fell against the stove, he realized that, quote, this was now his chance, end quote. And he had very knowingly and purposefully stabbed her in the neck where he thought her jugular vein was. Flavio said that it had been the drugs he'd taken that it helped him to be able to face the task of dismembering Chippung and he had no idea why he'd hold on to her arms and legs. In his statement, he said that once the anger he had towards Chippung had faded, he'd felt sorry for what he'd done and was now very remorseful for his crimes and apologize to her family. Prosecution was happier with this statement as it pointed to the clear premeditation and put a life sentence on the table. The prosecutor would later say in an interview though that he didn't actually think even that was the real story. And he believes that Flavio had been even more cruel and calculated in his murder of Chippung because in all the photographs he had seen of Flavio's house, there was no stove in the kitchen. And when Chippung had described one incidence of abuse to her friend, she'd said that he'd held her face to a two-place countertop stove. Had Flavio just merged his previous methods of abuse with this event and decided to include this seemingly accidental occurrence of Chippung hitting her head to try and make it seem somehow less calculated. Who knows? But the prosecution would take it. He'd admitted he had planned for as long as two months to kill her and then he had purposefully lured her back to his house, knowing very well that she would never leave alive. And this makes me wonder about Chippung having packed all her belongings at her dad's. This must have been done on Flavio's instruction. And probably because he knew very well she would never visit him again. Was Flavio having submitted a plea that the prosecution accepted on the 10th of February 2023 Judge Kasim Musa found him guilty of all three charges against him. When pre-sentencing proceedings began in May 2023, a social worker detailed a report they'd put together around Flavio. This included information about his childhood, background, his interactions with his family and a letter Flavio had written, apologizing to Chippung's family. In the letter he claimed that he was deeply remorseful for what he had done and expressed that he still loved Chippung dearly and was grateful he'd been able to experience such love. He stated that he and Chippung's lives were so intertwined that on the day he ended who's he had also ended his own. The prosecutor quite rightly pushed back at this saying that if Flavio was so remorseful he would have told the truth about what really happened and not try to lay blame at Chippung's door. I must also say that I can't see how his life ended on the day Chippung died as he claims because he was quite happily partying it up and back out in the dating pool again just days after he'd murdered and dismembered her. But quite sure how that adds up to this deep all encompassing love he claims to have for her. In the social workers reports Flavio's mother Grace described his son as a non-violent person who as a child had not even been able to witness the slaughtering of chickens on their homestead. She said that she'd suspected her son was using drugs because she had observed him doing something "uncontrollably without sense" while visiting his father's grave in 2021. Therefore the information was given about this thing he did while at his father's grave but considering what he would go on to do to Chippung perhaps I'd rather not know. When Flavio spoke with a social worker about his abuse of Chippung he downplayed it significantly and said he had pushed her twice. This was in stock contrast to the evidence given by her friends who described at least five different instances where Flavio had hit attacked or otherwise assaulted Chippung. Again the prosecutor pointed out the difference in the versions and said it showed that Flavio was continuing to lie to paint himself in as good a light as possible. On the 16th of May 2023 Flavio clabanguane was handed down a life sentence for the murder of Chippung Pizzé as well as 10 and 15 years respectively for the other charges. The sentences would be served concurrently and Flavio will be eligible for parole in 2046 when he is 53 years old. Chippung's family was grateful for the life sentence but still longed for proper answers. They didn't believe Flavio's story about how and why Chippung was killed nor did they believe he had tossed her torso in the river. A few different ideas had been thrown around about why Chippung may really have been killed. Some in her family believe it still had to do with their inheritance from her mom. Others believe there may have been some ritualistic elements to her death because Flavio's mother had allegedly practiced as a sangoma. And while with art Flavio actually telling the truth that's impossible to say for sure, for me his desire to ultimately control Chippung was very likely the actual reason. Chippung had put up with a lot from him and it's very likely she was getting to the point where she was feeling more empowered through the support from her friends and getting ready to leave Flavio permanently and he simply would not have that. This all encompassing love Flavio spoke about was not love at all. Instead it was possessiveness, a desire for control and a deep belief that anyone who wronged him deserved to be punished. Maybe in a way it was an all encompassing love but not for Chippung, rather for himself. Chippung suffered a major loss when she was 15 when her mother died and from that point she seemed to have been under the influence of people who wanted her to think a certain way. We'll never really know what led her to think that her relationship with her cousin was a good idea. Who knows, maybe someone told her that there was actually no blood link between them. Either way Chippung found herself in a relationship that felt deeply connected and every time she tried to pull away she somehow got sucked back in. Thus is completely normal for victims of abuse and it often takes a few attempts for them to completely leave the abuser but that's only if the other very common aspect of abuse doesn't kick in first. And that's is when showing that you are capable and willing to leave becomes a death sentence. Chippung, pizza, fresh gently. If you'd like to hear more victim-focused true crime content, please subscribe to True Crime South Africa on Spotify or the platform you're using to listen right now. If you're looking for something still related to real life stories but often with a more positive slant, you can check out my new podcast series I Live Through This. You can follow both podcasts on social media, we're on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. I'll be back next week with another episode. Until then, thank you for your support and I'll chat to you soon. [Music]