TSHITALE – The Tshitale Magistrate's Court denied bail to a 23-year-old man who was arrested for allegedly axing his family to death.

Frans Mashiane of Slanger, appeared in court on Monday, following an incident that happened on Friday. Mashiane, who handed himself to the police on Saturday morning, said he lost his temper on Friday when his wife, Onica Mapogo (20), refused to give him money.

The self-employed Mashiane allegedly had a quarrel with his wife until she decided to pack her belongings and leave for her parents' home at Ha-Mulima, together with her 26-month-old daughter, Pertunia.

While she was walking with her baby on her back, her husband followed her with an axe and a butcher's knife. "He then attacked them and hacked them to death, and left their bodies in the bush. He only handed himself over to us on Saturday when he reported the matter," said Capt Mashudu Malelo of the SAPS in Tshitale. Mashiane appeared in the Tshitale Magistrate's Court on Monday and his case was postponed to July 14 for a bail application.