MOMSTERS - Mother's who Kill

As a profiler, every now and then you have a case that haunts you. One that is unresolved. One that flies in the face of justice and flaunts your belief in the system. This case remains one of mine.

Late Saturday afternoon in Tlokweng in Botswana on 7th of January 2017 Katlego Queen Lejage was charged with the murder of her two-year-old toddler, Jason Lejage. The killing occurred after an apparent argument with the child's father Mr. Smith, the enraged woman was alleged to have grabbed a kitchen knife and brutally cut the toddler's throat, with so much force that she severed the trachea. A few hours later, she allegedly calmly took a taxi to the Central Police Station and handed herself into officers telling them that she had killed the child. Police officers, then accompanied her back to her home, walking into a bloody scene in the bedroom where they discovered the lifeless body of toddler Jason Lejage. A confession statement was never obtained.

This heinous offense begs the examination of a few critical questions? Who is Katlego Queen Lejage? How does a mother murder her baby? What type of personality would go to these extremes? What were the circumstances that led up to the horrendous murder of the innocent young victim? Are there any lessons that we could possibly learn from the tragic death of this child that could prevent such a crime from reoccurring?

Katlego Queen Lejage was born in the village of Ramotswa on the 17th of October 1990. She was 27 years old when events occurred. She grew up in Manyana, Botswana raised by her grandmother, until the age of eleven after which she moved to Mogoditshane to live with her mother Virginia Montsho and her stepfather Oboneng Montsho. She claims that her upbringing was troubled and that she had a strained relationship with her "parents".

Two of Lejaje's Facebook pages under the names of Keneilwe Lejage and Sebobi Keneilwe reveal a highly narcissistic personality. Both pages sported numerous of photos (mostly selfies) picturing the young woman in various poses wearing a number of wigs, clearly obsessed with her own image.

On the first page, there are just two photos of her toddler son pictured with his father. This would indicate a serious detachment or lack of attachment to the child whom she possibly perceived as an inconvenience at best and an obstacle to her future at worst.

Lejage was unemployed, allegedly living a largely parasitic lifestyle. She appeared to attach herself to wealthy foreigners living in Botswana or abroad and use them to satisfy her financial needs by entering into “relationships” with them. This is not atypical of perpetrators having traits of Anti-Social Personality Disorder and criminal psychopaths.

From all accounts, Lejage appeared to be pathologically deceptive. After her relationship with Mr. Smith (the biological father of the murdered toddler) broke down, she quickly became involved with one Mr. Proyer, a lecturer at the University of Botswana in May 2013. After becoming pregnant, she informed Mr. Proyer that she was expecting his child after he too tried to end their relationship. As such he supported her through the pregnancy and later tried to adopt the child. After DNA tests were carried out, he was shocked to discover that he was not the child's biological father. When questioned Lejage stated that she did not know who the biological father of the child was. She appears to have had a highly dishonest relationship with both men, manipulating them both into supporting her financially. Deceptive and devious behaviour patterns are regularly evident in people with both Narcissistic and Anti-Social Personality Disorders.

Lejage later approached Mr. Smith and informed him that he was the child’s father. A DNA test proved this to be fact and paternity was established. It appears that the reason for her revelation to Mr. Smith was again financial and that Lejage needed monetary support for school fees and the like. At the time she was allegedly still trying to facilitate the child's adoption by Mr. Proyer. Lejage was about to become trapped in her web of deceit. On conclusively establishing paternity, Mr. Smith stopped the adoption process in its tracks and assumed parental responsibilities for his child. Lejage was apparently furious.

Despite the involvement of Social Services and various agreements having been reached, Lejage continued to frustrate Mr. Smith's access to Jason. She was shamelessly using the child to hurt Mr. Smith, despite her claiming that she was still in love with him. Mr. Smith in the interim was desperate to build a relationship with his child and was indeed making good headway with his endeavours. The toddler was beginning to bond with his father and before his untimely death had just started calling him "daddy".

For the following five months, Lejage allegedly continued to psychologically and emotionally torture Smith, making it as difficult as possible for him to see his son. During this time, subsequent to her revelations, Legaje sent Smith a number of bizarre communications wherein she threatened suicide. She allegedly informed him that he would see Jason over her dead body.

Then life took another surprising turn. Lejage relocated and refused to disclose her address to Smith. She took the child out of school, and simply disappeared into thin air. Lejage manipulated her friends into lying for her and refusing to divulge her whereabouts to the child's increasingly desperate father. This impulsive, irresponsible, manipulative behaviour is another set of behaviours associated with psychopaths, anti-social, and narcissistic personality's. It also shows a complete lack of empathy for the trauma that her behaviour would cause to the child's father. Clearly her goal was to cause him stress and pain. From mid-November until the day she killed the toddler Lejage refused Mr. Smith access to his son.

It is my opinion, that despite her suicide threats, it was unlikely, given her narcissistic and anti-social personality traits that Lejage would ever inflict harm on her person. However, prior to the child's death, I was convinced and indicated to Smith that I was of the opinion that Lejage posed a serious danger to the toddler and that he should seek to remove the child from her custody as soon as possible.

I cautioned Mr. Smith that Social Workers in Botswana are generally insufficiently trained to identify criminally unstable, dangerous parents and because of this serious lack of training, they are unable to predict imminent threat to young children. It has been my experience that sadly, social workers receive little or no psychological training and are largely incapable of recognising traits attributed to dangerous personality disorders. Unfortunately, until this situation is addressed, children will continue to suffer and die at the hands of potentially volatile parents who display unrecognized psychopathic and other dangerous personality traits.

Regrettably, Police Officer's and other law enforcement personnel, face similar challenges. Officers are often manipulated by perpetrators, who regularly influence law enforcement into inadvertently or even purposefully furthering these perpetrator’s agendas. This is regularly achieved through the promise of sexual or other favours. In this case, Police had every opportunity to arrest and detain Lejage for questioning on an open assault case prior to her killing the toddler but failed to act at all, never mind timeously. In fact, in my opinion, the investigating officer was deliberately sabotaging the investigation.

On the day of the alleged murder, MrSmith, after discovering the whereabouts of Lejage's new residence in Tlokweng, and despite my strong cautioning of him not to do so, decided to approach Lejage in an attempt to see Jason. He claimed that he missed the child since Lejage's disappearance. Smith said that she refused to open the door and allow him to see the child. He explained that Lejage stated that she would not allow him access to the child until he presented her with a court order to do so. Smith indicated that he tried to reason with her explaining that she was not doing herself any favours, behaving as she was. He allegedly informed her that she could be arrested on the assault charges he had laid against her and was being sought by the police for questioning. Smith said he could hear the muffled cries of his son as the confrontation was unfolding. Not wanting to upset the child any further, Smith alleged he told the child through the closed door, "Jason Daddy loves you, I will see you soon."

In my opinion, this is possibly the worst course of action Smith could have embarked on as far as the toddler's safety was concerned. What Smith could not have understood or appreciated is that, where a narcissist is concerned, any challenge is seen as an insult, resulting in narcissistic injury - a perceived threat to a narcissist's self-esteem or self-worth. This frequently triggers a narcissistic rage during which such narcissist is quite capable of resorting to violent and even murderous behaviour aimed at destroying the "thing" they feel may inflict the next insult which they feel would shatter them. This coupled with Lejage's impulsive behaviour, lack of empathy, irresponsibility, inability to foresee consequences would have enabled her to kill the toddler with relative ease. Despite her claims of loving Jason on her second Facebook profile, she was clearly not acting in the best interests of the child. In her own distorted mind, it is possible that she felt that she would rather kill him than share him with his father.

Enraged after the confrontation with Smith, Lejage was in all likelihood feeling threatened at Smith having learned her new address, opening an assault case against her and possibly having to face criminal charges. I am of the opinion that Lejage may have perceived the child crying for his father as a further insult and as a betrayal, causing her to turn on the toddler. In my opinion, Lejage clearly wanted to destroy Smith and the child was the only instrument at her disposal with which she could accomplish her objective. She explains that the narcissist's goal is to inflict pain on their target. Lejage, in my opinion, knew that by killing the child she would cause maximum pain to Smith, whereas by killing herself she would actually facilitate Smith's gaining custody of his son and being able to live a happy life without her interference and manipulation. In my opinion, Lejage's behaviour was calculated and pre-meditated designed for maximum impact.

VICTIM- JASON LEJAGE

As additional facts surfaced, I had hoped that the muddy waters around the alleged murder would clear. For inexplicable reasons, this has not been the case. Despite Botswana’s citizens being shocked over the tragic loss of an innocent child, his life extinguished by the person obligated to protect him and keep him safe. His mother! To date, Lejage has not been successfully prosecuted. Irregularities in police procedure and conduct resulted in a complete bungling of the case. This will in all probability result in Lejage never having to pay for her crime.

Lejage was released on bail in January 2017. Shortly after her release, she took to making a number of highly inappropriate comments on Mr. Smith’s Facebook pages using at least three of her Facebook identities. She has stated that she did not kill Jason and in fact, has not killed anybody. She appeared to be fixated on the status of Mr. Smith's work and residence permits and on proving her allegations of him being dishonest. She had gone so far as to imply that Mr. Smith may have committed the murder.

This is not, atypical behaviour, it is characteristic of anti-socials and narcissists not to take responsibility for their criminal behaviour and to misdirect, manipulate and attempt to shape the narrative to their advantage. Lejage used her sexuality to attain her goals, and in doing so managed to find herself a number of male sympathisers online. This attention will have boosted her confidence and fed her ego, a primary need.

At this point, the only lesson that we as members of society can take away from the tragedy that is this case is that - before you antagonize a potentially dangerous person, make sure that you have taken steps to ensure that they can't lash out at an innocent victim.

Let's hope at some point there will be some form of Justice for Jason.