Where Is Thabo Bester Now? All About the Beauty and the Bester Subject’s Life After Allegedly Faking Death to Escape Prison By Jordana Comiter

Netflix is sharing more gripping details into one of South Africa’s most notorious criminals: Thabo Bester.

Beauty and the Bester, the three-part docuseries that was released on the platform on Sept. 12, pulls back the curtain on one of South Africa’s most scandalous and shocking criminal cases. Widely known as the “Facebook Rapist,” Bester used the social media platform to lure women into meetings, where he raped and robbed his victims. In 2012, he was convicted for the rape and murder of his then girlfriend, one year after being found guilty of raping and robbing two other women, per BBC.

Nearly a decade into serving his life sentence, a fire broke out in his prison cell, and Bester was pronounced dead. But discrepancies soon emerged, and it was later revealed that the charred body in the cell belonged to someone else — and was all part of Bester’s elaborate jailbreak scheme, the docuseries claims.

After breaking out of prison, Bester lived under aliases in Johannesburg for nearly a year and allegedly continued to con people with the help of his partner, celebrity doctor Nandipha Magudumana, according to media reports. But in 2023, the pair’s activities caught up to them and they were arrested while on the run in Tanzania, per BBC.

So, where is Thabo Bester now? Here’s everything to know about the Facebook Rapist’s life over three years after he was accused of faking his own prison death.

What did Thabo Bester do?

Thabo Bester, dubbed the Facebook Rapist, used the social media platform to lure his victims to meetings by pretending to be a modeling agent who could secure opportunities for the women. Once getting them to meet in person, Bester raped and robbed them.

In 2012, one year after being found guilty of raping and robbing two other women, Bester was convicted for the rape and murder of his model girlfriend, Nomfundo Tyhulu, per BBC.

During a 2011 interview with a psychologist following his arrest that was shown in the docuseries, Bester said he “admired” and “looked up” to people who worked in the entertainment industry, which prompted his desire to chase nice things.

“I felt that I would love to live like them, drive the cars they drive. I think that’s where my problems started,” he said. “I couldn’t separate reality and the actual facts.”

Bester later added that a part of him always wanted to know how it felt to “have a knife and have somebody under your control.”

How did Thabo Bester escape prison?

In May 2022, Bester was serving a life sentence at Mangaung Correctional Centre in Free State and was formally declared dead by suicide after a fire in his cell, according to NBC News.

However, South African officials later discovered it to be an elaborate jailbreak plan that involved allegedly smuggling a dead body into the prison so Bester could fake his own death and escape, per South African news outlet GroundUp and NBC News.

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Officials allege that Bester bribed several prison employees into helping with his escape plan, including conning his way into an isolation cell that was located near a fire escape and in an area with limited cameras, per the docuseries, NBC News and GroundUp.

He allegedly had help from his celebrity girlfriend, Dr. Nandipha Magudumana. Per NBC News, police identified Magudumana as Bester’s “accomplice,” and in the docuseries, the pair were continuously compared to Bonnie and Clyde.

Magudumana was still married to her husband and had two children, though would visit Bester in prison, the docuseries claims. Per the docuseries, Bester proposed to her while he was in prison in 2020, which supposedly allowed her to claim to the courts that she was Bester’s customary wife in order to qualify and have his dead body — which was actually someone else’s — released to her.

What happened when Thabo Bester escaped prison?

After allegedly covering up the prison escape — albeit temporarily — Bester and Magudumana are believed to have lived in a private mansion in a wealthy suburb of Johannesburg. According to media reports, they lived a luxurious life, all while running a company that allegedly defrauded businesses out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, per CBS News.

Rather than hiding, Bester began using several different identities, most commonly going by the alias TK Nkwana, the docuseries claims. He allegedly continued to scam people, using photoshop to put his face onto the bodies of celebrities and maintain an influential persona so he could lure people to invest in his companies.

But in the wake of the prison fire, several inconsistencies began coming to light. Per BBC, the autopsy report showed that the man in the cell died from blunt force trauma to the head, rather than a fire. Not only that, but the autopsy had a notably different height listed than that of the mugshot.

When police discovered that the burned body in Bester’s cell belonged to someone else, a nationwide manhunt was launched. In April 2023, Bester and Magudumana were arrested in Tanzania. Per NBC News, the pair had fled South Africa by car via the Zimbabwean border.

According to the outlet, Magudumana’s father and a prison guard were already charged with murder in connection with the man who was found burned in Bester’s prison cell.

Where is Thabo Bester now?

As shared at the end of the docuseries, Bester returned to prison to serve his life sentence. Per CBS News, he is now facing new charges in connection with his escape. As for his life in prison, Bester has repeatedly applied to access a laptop and the internet, per the docuseries.

According to BBC, he and Magudumana also took court action to try and block Netflix from releasing Beauty and the Bester. Per the outlet, his lawyers claim that the docuseries was defamatory and would infringe their right to a fair trial.

However, in a court ruling just hours before the project’s release, a judge decided that the rape case was “firmly in the public domain” and that they hadn’t proved that their petition was urgent, per BBC. According to the outlet, the judge also noted that once the docuseries aired, they would still be free to sue for defamation if they wished.

If you or someone you know has been a victim of sexual abuse, text “STRENGTH” to the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 to be connected to a certified crisis counselor.