BUTLER TWP. — A South African man was sentenced to prison Friday after being convicted for the murder of a fourth victim in a multi‐state crime spree.
On February 19, 2011, Muziwokuthula S. Madonda, 45, fatally shot 25‐year‐old Zenzele Davis Mdadane in the area of 10100 Frederick Pike in Butler Township, according to the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office.
Madonda and Mdadane were both from South Africa, knew each other, and both had received United States work visas.
Days before murdering Mdadane, Madonda robbed and fatally shot a female bank vice president in Akron, the prosecutor’s office said. After the Akron murder, Madonda lured Mdadane to Dayton with plans to murder him and assume his identity.
When Mdadane arrived to Dayton, Madonda drove him to an isolated area in Butler Township and fatally shot him. He then took his belongings and fled to New Mexico.
On March 17, 2011, Madonda shot and killed two men inside a Tucumcari, New Mexico hotel room and fled to Texas, the prosecutor’s office said. Texas Rangers located him in a motel room that was registered in his name and arrested him. Inside Madonda’s vehicle, investigators found a .38 caliber revolver that was used in all four homicides.
On March 17, 2022, the Montgomery County Grand Jury indicted Madonda for the aggravated murder of Mdadane. On December 21, 2022, he entered a guilty plea to one count of aggravated murder with a three year firearm specification and one count of felonious assault.
In a court hearing prior to his plea, Madonda told the court that given the opportunity he will “kill again” and that he “kills people everywhere he goes,” the prosecutor’s office said.
On Friday, Madonda was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, which was ordered to run consecutively to the 24 year sentence imposed in New Mexico and consecutively to the 33 years‐to‐life prison sentence for the Akron homicide, the prosecutor’s office said.