Killers of former SABC sports commentator Owen Ndlovu have made away with his cellphone.
Africa Daily has learnt that Ndlovu’s cellphone which was on several hours after he was abducted was not found at the scene where he was discovered murdered.
Only his bag which was containing documents was found at the murder scene.
His vehicle, a Ford Raptor, was found abandoned in Walkerville, south of Joburg.
The device has now been switched off.
Colonel Dimakatso Sello, the Gauteng police spokesperson, would not comment on Ndlovu ‘s missing cellphone.
“The investigations on the matter are underway and we are not at liberty to divulge investigation or evidence details thereof,” Sello said.
That phone was the family’s last contact with Ndlovu. Three men forced him into his vehicle in Katlehong at about 8pm on Tuesday, 15 September, as his wife Portia Ndlovu walked towards the vehicle. One of them was reportedly armed. They pushed her aside and drove off with him.
“He was picked up by men with guns and they took him away. I’m scared for him,” Portia told Africa Daily on the night of incident.
For about an hour afterwards, his phone kept ringing. His WhatsApp still showed him as online. Shortly after 9pm, it went off.
The bakkie was found abandoned and partially stripped in Walkerville. The following morning, Ndlovu’s body was found dumped next to a road in Thokoza. His bag lay a few metres away but the phone was not with him.
A missing handset does not close off the evidence. Networks keep records of the calls a phone makes and the towers it connects to, and police can obtain those by subpoena. Such records can show where a phone travelled after it stopped answering, and which other devices moved with it.
Whether that has been done in Ndlovu’s case is among the details police declined to discuss.
The cellphone is the second set of devices to go missing around him.
On Saturday, Africa Daily reported that burglars broke into the offices of his attorneys two weeks before his death and took laptops holding his SAMRO case documents. Cellphones were also taken.
“They took our laptops and cellphones. The laptops had the documents we were working on in the SAMRO matters, including the matter involving the former COO, Mpho Mofikoe,” said Thandi Ketwa of Ketwa Attorneys.
That case is open at Sunnyside police station under CAS 898/8/2026. Ketwa said fingerprints were lifted at the scene and police are waiting for them to be matched. Nobody has been arrested.
Sello confirmed that a case of business burglary was registered on 31 August 2026. “The incident occurred at Stanza Bopape and Eastwood Avenue and several IT equipment including cellphones were reported stolen. The matter is still under investigation and no one is arrested,” she said.
Police have not said whether the burglary and the murder have been linked for investigation.
She said that the Germiston Trio Crimes unit is investigating a case of murder, a post-mortem will establish the cause of death. The family said that Ndlovu was shot three times at the back and no arrests have been made.
Ndlovu, 54, a former SABC sports presenter, had become one of SAMRO’s most persistent critics through his work with Artists United. His company, O.N.E Rights Management, provided services to the Southern African Music Rights Organisation until the organisation ended the agreement in March 2025.
The relationship then collapsed into litigation. SAMRO CEO Annabell Lebethe took out a protection order against him. In July, a magistrate dismissed it, finding that the conduct complained of was not harassment and that the interim order had been obtained on “half truths and incomplete information”.
Ndlovu said he was still kept out of SAMRO House in Braamfontein. On 27 August, SAPS Legal Services wrote to the State Attorney asking for help so that he could work without disturbance from Lebethe. The letter recorded that no court order barred him from the building.
He returned to the Booysens Magistrate’s Court on 15 September, hours before he was taken, and Lebethe was summoned to appear two days later. She did not come. A SAMRO lawyer appeared instead and asked for a postponement to obtain Ndlovu’s death certificate. The matter returns to court on 2 October.
That same week, a parliamentary reply showed that none of the 11 stalled police cases raised by MP E Mthethwa has reached prosecution. Four were withdrawn by prosecutors. Three were closed because no suspect could be identified. The ministry said no action was required against any investigating officer.
Artists United chairperson Eugene Mthethwa said the manner of Ndlovu’s murder was suspicious, pointing to the many cases he and the organisation had opened against SAMRO and some of its executives without any arrests.
SAMRO has extended condolences to the family and said it condemns violence and criminality in all forms. It said it was confident police would investigate, and that it would not comment on its disputes with Ndlovu out of respect for his family.
No evidence has been produced linking the burglary or Ndlovu’s disputes to his killing.
