Gqeberha man on parole gets 15 years for Christmas Day murder
Donoven Carolus, 57, was identified by the victim's sister, who spotted him walking past a police station weeks after the shooting.
The Gqeberha Regional Court has sentenced a 57-year-old man who was out on parole to an effective 15 years in prison for a murder committed on Christmas Day in 2024.
Donoven Carolus was convicted of killing Elston Bain and attempting to murder Bain’s friend in Jacksonville, a township outside Gqeberha. As IOL reported on 5 October, the court heard that Bain had driven to a friend’s place in Brasilwood Street to wish him a merry Christmas, with another friend and his sister in the car.
He was getting out of his vehicle when Carolus approached and shot him in the head without saying anything. When the friend climbed out of the car, Carolus fired at him as well and then fled. The sister and the surviving friend both identified him.
Carolus stayed at large for eleven days. He was arrested on 5 January 2025 after Bain’s sister saw him walking past Bethelsdorp police station. She told officers she recognised him by a visible scar and identified him as the man who had shot her brother.
It then emerged that Carolus was on parole at the time of the killing. During the trial he pleaded not guilty and called his wife as an alibi witness. The court convicted him on the evidence of the complainant in the attempted murder charge, the testimony of Bain’s sister, and a ballistic report linking the firearm to the crime.
Regional Court prosecutor Cheswin King told the court that Carolus had previously been convicted and sentenced for two murders. He argued that the pattern showed a persistent disregard for human life and for the authority of the law, and asked for a sentence of 25 years.
The court instead found compelling exceptional circumstances to depart from the prescribed minimum sentence, citing Carolus’s age and a chronic medical condition. He received 15 years for the murder and the attempted murder, plus seven years for the unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition, with the sentences ordered to run concurrently.
Samkelo Mtwana, the Director of Public Prosecutions in the Eastern Cape, welcomed the outcome. He said it demonstrated the criminal justice system’s firm stance against violent crime and lawlessness, and that the National Prosecuting Authority remained committed to holding perpetrators of serious violent crimes accountable and to delivering justice for victims and their families.
For readers following crime and courts in the Eastern Cape, three things in this case are worth holding onto. The first is that the sentence was carried by ordinary evidence: a family member who could identify the shooter, a surviving victim who testified, and ballistics that tied the gun to the killing. The second is that the shooter was found not by a manhunt but because a relative recognised him in the street and walked into a police station. The third is that he was on parole when he fired, which is a question for the Department of Correctional Services about how a man with two prior murder convictions came to be outside prison at all. That question has not been answered publicly, and it is the one that will matter most to people in Jacksonville and Bethelsdorp.
Source: IOL, Gqeberha parolee sentenced to 15 years for Christmas Day murder
