Harrowing details of how a Gqeberha mother, who desperately fought to stay alive while battling Cancer and undergoing chemotherapy died in a stabbing frenzy at the hands of her youngest son emerged in the city's high court on Tuesday.
The court further heard how Sharon Ann Butlion (65) had awoken from her sleep while her son, Maurice (35), was stabbing her with a carving knife and lifted her hand towards him in a desperate bid to ward off the attack.
In his stabbing frenzy, the carving knife broke, cutting Butlion's hand, but he stabbed her a few more times with the remaining portion of the knife.
After Butlion stabbed his mother, he set various items inside their Park Drive flat alight, locked the Trellidoor, and left her inside while flames engulfed the flat.
Sharon's partially burnt body was found inside her bedroom.
On Tuesday, Butlion was sentenced to life imprisonment on a charge of murder, seven years on a count of arson, and ten years each for defeating the ends of justice and prohibition of abuse of older persons.
By entering a guilty plea, Butlion brought a two-year-long court saga to an end, just ten days after celebrating his 35th birthday.
In his plea agreement, Butlion says he became unemployed as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic and he had no way of generating an income.
At around the same time, Sharon became ill and was eventually diagnosed with Cancer.
"We were under constant financial and emotional stress and this led me to have a nervous breakdown.
"The fact that I was unemployed and that I had mental health issues made things very difficult as far as our family was concerned.
"We were financially stressed about money for months on end and did not know how we would get by from day to day."
Butlion said on 12 September 2022, after trying to figure out a solution to the problem for many weeks, he "suddenly" realised that there was no way out for him and his mom.
"I came to the conclusion that the only way out was to kill my mother and then kill myself as my mother and I couldn't live like this."
The following morning (13 September 2022) after going back and forth with himself about whether to execute his plan, Butlion went ahead.
At around 06:00 he entered his mother's bedroom with a carving knife, switched on the light, and noticed that she was asleep.
"I walked towards her and started stabbing her on her head and in her face.
"She opened her eyes and raised her hand towards me to ward off the attack but then lay still.
"The knife broke and I got cut on the outside of my right hand. I stabbed her a couple more times with the remaining portion and then threw the knife aside."
When Butlion returned to his bedroom he picked up the car and flat keys and then set a long sleeve shirt in his cupboard and the duvet on his bed alight.
On his way out, he also set the tablecloth on the dining room table alight.
He locked the Trellidoor but left the door to the flat open, got into the car, and drove away.
"It had throughout been my plan to kill myself with the knife that I had used to stab my mother and did not know what to do once the knife broke while I was stabbing her.
"I had never thought my own suicide through properly and I was shocked by what I had done.
"I had no backup plan."
Butlion described how he parked the car near the Animal Welfare Society in Walmer and walked towards the bushes near Walmer Township where he spent the night.
When day broke, he walked towards a spaza shop where he asked for water and later walked to a different spaza shop to buy cigarettes and a packet of chips.
Thereafter he searched Walmer Township in vain for a friend, before walking towards the BP garage on 10th Avenue.
This is where the investigating officer, Detective Constable Ridwaan Baatjies arrested him.
Butlion stated in his plea that his mother did nothing wrong and had been very good to him and his siblings. He is the youngest of three children.
"I was in full control of my faculties and actions when I acted as aforesaid.
"I would like to apologise to my family, my brother and sister, and our loved ones as well as society for what I had done to my mother.
"My actions were selfish, ill-considered, and totally misguided," he said.
