9 South African Creepiest Case You Probably Don't Know
South Africa is a beautiful country with incredible beaches, the big five, great entertainment
hot spots, and exciting sports events.
Unfortunately, the crime rate here is one of the highest in the world.
We have a frightening daily scourge of hijackings, rape, armed robberies, ATM bombings, domestic
violence, and murder.
Serial murders are not new to South Africa.
In fact, the country has the second-highest number of serial killers in the world.
In this list we'll have a look at 9 of the most evil serial killers that have operated
here over the last century.
1.
Pierre Basson Serial killing—in the headlines this week
after the discovery of the "Station Strangler's" personal graveyard - is a relatively rare
phenomenon in South Africa, police and psychologists said this week.
The six cases unearthed by the Mail & Guardian show how difficult it is to categorise multiple
murders of this type.
Two have a distinctly South African racial theme, four were sex killings and one was
apparently motivated by psychotic greed.
According to Playboy magazine, the US accounts for 74 percent of known serial killers and
Europe 19 percent.
The first recorded serial killer in South Africa was Pierre Basson believed to have
killed eight or nine people between 1903 and 1906 in Cape Town.
Basson ran a money-lending scheme, inducing borrowers to take out insurance policies naming
him as beneficiary and then killing them.
His first victim was his brother, whom he drowned on a fishing trip.
When police discovered the grave of his last victim, a German's farmer, he committed
suicide.
His last words to his mother, as the police were excavating his yard, were "I'm going
to get dressed for the police I have done no wrong."
More recent cases are:
Simon Mpungose, nicknamed "the Hammerman", in 1983 broke into a succession of Empangeni
houses, bludgeoned four people to death with a hammer and tried to murder four others.
AU his victims were white adults.
Mpungose's motive appeared to be racial.
According to Rian Malan, author of My Traitor's Heart, he told an Empangeni court that he
was fulfilling a dream he had had in prison 11 years earlier, in which he grew larger
and stronger, broke out of jail and obliterated all the whites in his path.
Refusing a defence, he said: "It (the murders) is because of what I have witnessed happening
to my fellow black men and also to me because of all that was done to me by the white people.
"He was executed.
Race also appears to have been a factor for Louis van Schoor, a former East London policeman
who between May 1986 and October 1989 killed 19 black intruders and wounded 64 others while
working as a security guard for a burglar alarm company.
Van Schoor (39) claimed self-defence during his trial in June 1992.
The judge said he had "shown a callousness and a disregard for human life", had misled
the police and shown a lack of remorse.
He was sentenced to 20 years 113 jail for seven of the murders.
Between January and August 1988, 46-year-old David Motshekgwa killed 14 black women after
"cunningly luring' them to an isolated area near Klerksdorp.
His trial, on 14 murder charges, was fie largest mass murder case in South African legal history.
Motshekgwa was found to be suffering from necrophilia.
There were hints of the ritualism which generally marks serial sex killings - the naked or half-naked
bodies of Ids victims were found covered with twigs.
He was sentenced to death.
Philip Ndyave of Queenstown strangled 12 women in 1989, on occasions robbing and raping them.
Found by the trial court to be psychotic, he said he did not know why he had committed
the murders.
Evidence was that Ndyave was the child of a cruel mother parental brutality is a common
theme in serial sex killings - with whom he stayed in close touch after leaving home.
Jacobus Geldenhuys (26), the "Norwood Rapist", confessed to murdering four women and a 16-year-old
schoolgirl, raping two of them, in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg in 1991.
Three were shot in the head at point blank range.
He was also convicted of two other rapes in the Rand Supreme Court.
He was sentenced to death.
Antonie Wessels, a homosexual and former bouncer, killed three men and maimed another with the
help of his 15-year-old lover.
Evidence during the trial was that Wessels derived sexual pleasure from slitting his
victims' throats.
Described by the court as a "dangerous psychopathic murderer", he believed his victims' souls
bonded with his at the moment of death.
2.
Stewart Wilken Stewart Wilken presents an interesting case
because he killed two distinct types of victims.
Serial killers almost invariably target victims who share certain characteristics, which may
be anything from their physical appearance to their vocation to something as mundane
as wearing high heels.
They do this because it provides them with an emotional release.
Ted Bundy killed young, attractive women.
Jeffrey Dahmer killed homosexual men.
Andrei Chikatilo killed children of both sexes.
Stewart Wilken killed adult female prostitutes and early adolescent boys.
Like all serial killers, there was a deep psychological motive underlying his choice
of victims.
Port Elizabeth is a large town on the east coast of South Africa, a country known for
gold, apartheid and Nelson Mandela.
It is also the country with the second highest number of serial killers, after the United
States (Pistorius, 2000), although this is a lesser-known fact.
By the beginning of 1997, at least eight people had already been killed by the same man over
a seven-year period in Port Elizabeth, or PE, as it is generally referred to by South
Africans.
However, no one had connected all the cases.
But Stewart Wilken finally made a mistake.
On January 22, 1997, a 12-year-old boy named Henry Bakers disappeared.
His mother, Ellen Bakers, was not concerned, as the boy frequently stayed over at his grandmother's
house in nearby Missionvale, which is walking distance from their home in Algoa Park.
However, when he did not arrive home by Thursday evening, she became uneasy.
On Friday morning, she went to her mother's house, only to hear that Henry had left for
home on Wednesday.
He had been missing for two days.
The Child Protection Unit was contacted and Sgt.
Ursula Barnard began to investigate the case.
She discovered Henry had been at his mother's house on Wednesday afternoon, after which
he played with a friend at a nearby park.
The friend told her that he had to go and buy milk for his parents and later saw Henry
with a man called Stewart Wilken in Dyke Way.
He asked Henry where he was going and the man said that it was none of his business.
Wilken was known to both Henry and Ellen Bakers, and had even lived at her mother's for a while
after he had had some marital problems.
Sgt.
Barnard set out to find Stewart Wilken, which was problematic because he did not have a
fixed address.
She was informed by a colleague that Wilken's daughter, Wuane, had disappeared in 1995,
and that there were also two charges of sodomy being investigated against him.
Like Henry Bakers, Wuane was last seen in Wilken's company.
The sodomy charges were filed by his parents-in-law in connection with the two sons of his second
wife, Victoria.
Sgt.
Barnard arrested Wilken on January 28, 1997, and questioned him.
He appeared genuinely concerned about the missing boy and eager to help.
He told Sgt.
Barnard that he had indeed been with Henry for a while on that Wednesday, but he knew
nothing about his disappearance.
In fact, Wilken alleged that he had spent the night at a lady friend's house.
He was released.
The alibi turned out to be false, and Wilken was rearrested on January 31, 1997.
The Child Protection Unit approached Sgt.
Derrick Norsworthy of the Murder and Robbery Unit.
He had been trained by Dr. Micki Pistorius, South Africa's first psychological profiler,
in the investigation of serial murder, which included advanced interviewing and interrogation
techniques.
Sgt.
Norsworthy had Wilken brought to his office, where the latter introduced himself as "Boetie
Boer" ("Brother Farmer"), and the name by which he was generally known.
Sgt.
Norsworthy sat Wilken down in a chair facing a photograph of the sergeant's daughter, who
was almost the same age as Wuane had been.
He left Wilken alone for a while.
Upon his return, he found Wilken staring at the photograph.
Sgt.
Norsworthy drew Wilken's attention to the framed certificates on his wall, signifying
that he had successfully completed training as an investigator of serial homicide.
Wilken's eyes found the photograph once more.
Sgt.
Norsworthy told Wilken that he knew he had killed the two children.
He also knew that Wilken had revisited the bodies to fantasize and commit necrophilia.
Wilken was silent, then his eyes drew on slits and he stretched out his hands.
"I am sick," he said.
Then, he admitted that he had killed both his daughter, Wuane, and Henry Bakers.
In fact, he had returned to the decomposing body of the boy that very morning to have
sex with it.
Wilken's full confession revealed disturbing details of his crimes.
He told the police that he "inspected" his daughter's vagina and found that she
had been "defiled."
He told her he wanted to save her from "this life" and then strangled her.
He kept her body (and later her skeleton) hidden behind the Garden Court Holiday Inn
hotel for six months.
The skeleton was found in 1996, but the police could only now attach an identity to it.
Wilken confessed to murdering at least 10 victims, including his daughter and Henry
Bakers.
Wilken was sentenced to seven life terms behind bars.
He is deemed a killer that cannot be rehabilitated, considering that he had shown no remorse,
did not look away as very disturbing pictures of the victims were displayed in court, and
even masturbated in the court bathroom during his trial.
3.
Gert van Rooyen The spiritualist believes Gert van Rooyen's
victims were buried under a pipeline on a KZN beach.
Yet another chapter in the tragic mystery of the six young victims of paedophile Gert
van Rooyen opened on the North Coast last week.
A police forensic team spent two days digging around a stormwater pipe on Blythedale Beach
for the remains of two, possibly three, of the victims of Van Rooyen and his lover, Joey
Haarhoff.
This followed a 15-month investigation by TV programme Fokus, which uncovered what they
believed was compelling evidence the girls might have been buried there after Van Rooyen
and Haarhoff holidayed at the resort.
Fokus executive producer Alet Wright, inset, said a family who had once lived in Blythedale
contacted her and said that while they were living there, their two-yearold son had an
"imaginary friend" he called Sheraton, who told him she had been beaten and assaulted
by adults.
The father had also seen the figure of a young girl next to their swimming pool, but she
had vanished.
Van Rooyen and Haarhoff were linked to the disappearance of five girls between 1988 and
1990.
They allegedly kidnapped Joan Horn, 13, Odette Boucher, 11, Anne-Marie Wapenaar, 12, Yolande
Wessels, 12, and Fiona Harvey, 12.
The girls have never been found.
Their last victim escaped from Van Rooyen's house in Pretoria and alerted the police.
Van Rooyen shot Haarhoff and then committed suicide during a police chase on January 16,
1990, less than a week later.
The couple are known to have holidayed in Blythedale and Umdloti.
Forensic teams have previously searched both locations, without success.
But this year, Wright was told by spiritualist LaRenta Marx that she was sure bodies had
been buried near a construction site on or near Blythedale.
A search of the archives of The North Coast Courier revealed that when the existing car
park and public toilets at Blythedale were being built in 1989, a stormwater pipe had
been laid on the beach.
The medium believed the bodies were under it.
Armed with this information, Wright convinced the police to investigate further.
Saps Forensics called in earthmoving machinery to uncover the pipe on Wednesday, after its
position had been pointed out by retired municipal engineer Leon Klopper.
The team dug further with spades and sifted for evidence, but were hampered by the depth
of the sand.
Former Springbok rugby captain Gary Teichmann donated two more machines, which dug deeper
but were eventually halted by a thick concrete slab under the beach.
The search was called off on Thursday night having had no success.
Van Rooyen had a long history of sexual violence.
In 1979, he abducted two girls, aged 10 and 13, taking them to Hartbeespoort Dam near
Pretoria where he punched them in the face to force them to strip naked and perform sexual
acts.
He released them in Pretoria the next day, and was arrested and sentenced to four years'
imprisonment for abduction – serving three years before being released.
Van Rooyen met Haarhoff in 1988, and is thought to have used her to lure young girls for him.
Children's homes reported that she telephoned, requesting to bring girls home for holidays
and weekends.
The couple applied to foster children, but were turned down.
The disappearance of the six young girls in 1988 and 1989 caused nationwide alarm.
After the suicide pact of Van Rooyen and Haarhoff had been carried out, police discovered forensic
evidence and eyewitnesses confirming they had taken the girls.
Police searched their Pretoria property and locations in Umdloti and Blythedale where
they had holidayed in vain.
On March 12, 2007, a set of adolescent bones was found on the beach near Umdloti, about
500 metres from a resort Van Rooyen and Haarhoff had visited.
But DNA testing did not identify any of the victims.
– Caxton News Service.
4.
Louis van Schoor Mass murderer Louis van Schoor walked straight
into the arms of his fiancee when he was released on parole after serving 12 years of his 20-year
sentence in the East London prison.
He was convicted in 1992 of seven murders and two attempted murders.
He was freed on Friday.
Van Schoor, 53, a former member of the police dog unit and security guard, made world headlines
when it was alleged that he had killed 39 people.
His modus operandi involved responding to silent alarms set up in business premises,
then shooting suspects with his 9mm parabellum.
At one point before his conviction he admitted to a journalist that he had shot 100 people
during his career as a security guard between 1986 and 1989.
His daughter, murderer Sabrina van Schoor, 23, was left behind in the same prison when
her father walked free.
She is serving a 25-year sentence for hiring a hitman to slit her mother's throat in 2002.
She reportedly arranged the murder of her mother, Beverly van Schoor, a Queenstown businesswoman,
because she abused her verbally and physically and because she was racist and did not approve
of Sabrina's black friends.
As the hitman stabbed her mother to death, Sabrina waited in her bedroom with her baby.
Before her conviction two years ago, Sabrina said she wanted her father to look after her
child even though she had at one time stated that he had assaulted her mother and threatened
to kill her.
Van Schoor would not confirm whether he would adopt his three-year-old granddaughter Tatum.
"I will always support my daughter and will try to create a bond with my grandchild,"
said Van Schoor, minutes after his release.
"I saw Sabrina on Wednesday.
We had a nice chat.
She is very excited for me.
The bond between us will not be broken."
Van Schoor's fiancee, Eunice de Kock, 38, is a Cape Town lawyer whom he says he met
"through the media" four years ago.
She will be his fifth wife.
She wore a black suit, seamed black hose and ankle strap stilettos to meet her lover.
The two embraced and kissed passionately before and after a media briefing at Fort Glamorgan
Prison.
"She is a very dear friend of mine.
We are engaged and we will see where it goes from here," said Van Schoor.
"I doubt that we will be living together because she is from Cape Town and I am from East London."
Looking fit and healthy and wearing a bright red golf shirt, he said his intention was
to "go farming".
He had studied agriculture in prison and spent his leisure time gardening in the grounds.
Reading out a pencil-written media statement, Van Schoor said he was happy to rejoin society.
"I am hoping that after so many years the public will not judge me on my past but rather
on my future.
I want to thank my daughters, Jane and Amy, and all the friends who stood by me through
the last 12 years."
He also thanked prison personnel.
"I have no words to describe how I feel and am very excited to see what comes my way.
I am planning to write a book about my life."
He initially said he had "nothing to say" to the families of the men he had murdered,
but eventually said he wanted their forgiveness.
"To the families and friends of my victims, I apologise if my action caused any hurt and
discomfort."
A prison official, Phineas Mouna, described Van Schoor as "a model prisoner" who showed
leadership qualities.
5.
David Randitsheni Johannesburg - A 45-year-old serial child
rapist and murderer was sentenced to multiple life terms by the Modimolle Circuit Court
in Limpopo on Tuesday, national police said.
"David Randitsheni was sentenced to 16 life sentences plus 220 years imprisonment for
a series of murders, rapes and kidnappings he committed between 2004 and 2008," Director
Sally de Beer said.
Randitsheni was convicted on 10 counts of murder, 17 counts of rape, one count of indecent
assault and 18 counts of kidnapping.
"There was only one count of rape for an adult female," De Beer said.
He was arrested on May 16 2008 after an intensive police investigation during which over 550
DNA samples were tested before a police forensic expert identified the suspect.
"All 19 victims were kidnapped and raped and 10 were murdered in a crime spree which devastated
the community of Modimolle," she said.
Judge Roger Claassen, in handing down the sentence, stipulated that Randitsheni could
not be considered for parole for the next 35 years.
By that time, he would be 80-years-old.
The SABC reported that in delivering judgement, Claassen said the crimes were committed in
a horrific manner, and as Randitsheni made admissions but chose to remain silent, showed
that he had no reasons to prove his innocence.
Claassen said the State had proven beyond a reasonable doubt he committed the offences.
Recently convicted Modimolle serial killer David Randitsheni, 45, has committed suicide,
said Limpopo police on Monday.
Captain Mashudu Malelo said Randitsheni was found hanging by a sheet from a window frame
in the Thohoyandou prison on Sunday.
An inquest docket was opened.
Randitsheni was serving 16 life sentences and 220 years after he was sentenced in the
Modimolle Circuit Court three weeks ago.
Randitsheni was convicted on 10 counts of murder, 17 counts of rape, one count of indecent
assault and 18 counts of kidnapping.
He had raped and killed a number of children and one adult in the Modimolle area between
2004 and 2008.
He was arrested on May 16, 2008 after an intensive police investigation during which over 550
DNA samples were tested before a police forensic expert identified the suspect.
– Sapa.
6.
Christopher Mhlengwa Zikode Christopher Mhlengwa Zikode, one of KwaZulu-Natal's
most notorious serial killers, could potentially be eligible for parole.
In 1997, Zikode was given five life sentences after he was found guilty of 21 charges of
murder, rape, indecent assault and housebreaking with intent to rape or murder.
He terrorised the residents of Donnybrook Township between April and September 1995.
Many of his killings were conducted execution-style and Zikode would kill his rape victims and
mutilate them.
He would break into people's homes and confront them in the dead of night.
During the early hours of June 24, 1995, Zikode repeatedly raped a woman and her nine-year-old
daughter on the same bed.
The following month, he broke into Zanele Khumalo's bedroom while she was asleep.
He shot her in the head, then dragged her to a nearby plantation and raped her.
These are just a few of the many atrocities Zikode has committed.
In 1995 during a three-week spree Bongani Mfeka, another KwaZulu-Natal serial killer,
who preyed on women commuters at the Kranskop taxi rank, was sentenced to four life sentences
after pleading guilty to four murders, an attempted murder, rape and theft.
Mfeka would lure women from the taxi rank and promise them work.
He then would lead them to a secluded forest, strangle and sometimes rape them.
Mfeka confessed in detail how he murdered the women and pointed out where he had left
the bodies, which were sometimes found in a state of decomposition.
He said he strangled the women because he had lied about finding them jobs, because
he was unemployed himself.
Dhevaraj Naidoo, a former teacher, was sentenced to death in 1994 but had his death sentence
replaced with life in 1999 by the Supreme Court of Appeal.
Naidoo was jailed for the murder of his wife, Amrita and daughter, Prashana, 7.
He was said to be a sole beneficiary of his wife's insurance policies, totalling R1
million.
Naidoo, too, is potentially eligible for parole.
Bheki Mazibuko laughed as the judge handed down his sentence of life imprisonment for
the murder of Durban businessman, Victor du Preez, and a colleague, David Ibbetson, in
1994.
The two had gone to check repair work in KwaMashu when they were robbed by Mazibuko and an accomplice,
Nhlanhla Mlambo.
Du Preez was assaulted, sworn at, pinned down and shot in the head.
Mazibuko and Mlambo then drove away with Ibbetson's car.
Soon after, they were arrested and found with possessions belonging to Ibbetson and Du Preez.
Mlambo was sentenced to 25 years.
Mazibuko and Mlambo had shown no remorse for their crime and were labelled a threat to
society.
Nkosikhona Gasela and Thembelani Sibiya were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1999 for
the murder of Kranskop timber farmer Friedel Redinger, former mayor of Kranskop.
Redinger was driving through his plantation when he was stopped by Gasela, ordered to
get out of his vehicle and was shot through the back of his head with a home-made shotgun.
Redinger was robbed of his car, farm radio and cellphone.
Sibiya and Gasela were members of the community police forum at the time of the murder.
7.
Bulelani Mabhayi Mthatha - He has cracked some of the most
serious criminal cases in the Eastern Cape – including the arrest of a serial rapist
in Mzamba, who raped and murdered women and removed their wombs for muti.
But the arrest of Bulelani Mabhayi, the "Monster of Tholeni", proved to be the most daunting
for Captain Aaron Hanise.
"This was a very difficult case.
People had no clue who was terrorising the community," he said.
Mabhayi operated in the Eastern Cape, preying on victims in Tholeni – a place that became
known as "the village of death".
The village lies along the N2 freeway, about 15km from Butterworth, a town situated between
East London and Mthatha.
It's a small village.
Herds of cattle, sheep and goats graze on the vegetation growing in the almost barren
landscape.
"There aren't many jobs around and most people just keep livestock or do odd jobs
in the village or town," said Nomfundiso Mpontshane, an activist whose house was used
as a victim support centre for traumatised relatives and other frightened villagers during
Mabhayi's reign of terror.
There are abandoned and dilapidated buildings interspersed with brightly painted houses.
The deserted houses belonged to Mabhayi's victims or their relatives – an eerie reminder
of his trail of destruction.
It was in June 2010, after the murder of Sinazo Mbeki and her two grandchildren, that Hanise
was tasked with tracking the perpetrator behind a string of murders now believed to be linked.
The three killings brought to eight the tally of murders that were believed to have been
committed by the same perpetrator.
Authorities were for the first time admitting that they were looking for a serial killer.
Hanise and his team of detectives initially put up a R250 000 reward for an arrest leading
to a conviction, but nobody came forward with any helpful information.
"We called the psychologists' office to help determine if we had a serial killer on
our hands.
They confirmed that," said Hanise.
DNA samples were also collected from some of the village residents with previous rape
convictions in the hope of finding a link.
It came to naught.
The case stalled and so provincial police management initiated a strategy called Operation
Good Hope, drawing on police from various units including the organised crime unit,
the dog unit and forensic divisions.
The joint operation made its first move on May 17, 2010, when hundreds of males over
the age of 16 were rounded up in an early-morning blitz in the area.
They were taken to a local church, where they had their DNA samples and fingerprints taken.
Mabhayi was among them.
But his fingerprints could not be lifted as he did not have an ID document.
The police focus did not deter Mabhayi.
He continued with his killing spree, murdering five more people over the next 13 months.
The breakthrough, when it was finally made, came as a result of Mabhayi's indiscretion
rather than good detective work.
On August 11 last year, Mabhayi murdered Nophumzile Florence Lubambo and accidentally left his
shoe at the crime scene.
It was a mistake that led to his arrest.
"We were looking for another person, who happened to be his (Mabhayi)'s brother,
the late Siyabonga.
Incidentally, we got him because of the shoe we found on the crime scene.
It matched the one he was wearing," said Hanise.
The saliva that had been drawn from Mabhayi during Operation Good Hope proved indispensable.
His DNA test results linked him to the string of murders.
"It was a huge relief when he was arrested.
I can gladly go on pension now," laughed Hanise.
As Mabhayi began serving his life sentence in prison on Tuesday, residents of the village
he terrorised for so long said they continued to live in fear.
Many believe Mabhayi was not working alone when he committed his crimes.
"When he testified in court, he (Mabhayi) always said 'we' when he answered questions.
Who else was he referring to?" asked Mpontshane.
By that time, the "Monster" had already murdered 15 victims.
He simply carried on and killed five more people before he made a mistake.
Leaving his shoe behind next to his last victim meant the end of his reign of terror.
In 2012, Mabhayi was given 25 life terms without the possibility of parole.
8.
Jack Mogale "I didn't do anything.
You know how life is, this is a challenge, I didn't do any of those things.
I don't even know those women"
These were the words of serial killer and rapist Jack Mogale before he was found guilty
of 52 crimes, including 16 murders and 12 rapes.
Judge Frans Kgomo described Mogale as a liar who contradicted himself numerous times and
tried to shift blame every time he was cornered.
"I can safely say that the accused was an untruthful witness whose evidence cannot be
relied on.
He contradicted himself and came up with new versions.
I formed the impression that he was not telling the whole truth," said Kgomo.
"The state has proved beyond reasonable doubt the accused's guilt".
Mogale may have been nailed by DNA evidence, admissions, two women who survived his killing
spree and a confession statement he made after the arrest, but it was his fiancee, main state
witness Charlotte Manaka who put the nail in the coffin with a testimony that contradicted
all of Mogale's versions.
Kgomo started judgment by dismissing Mogale's version that police had conspired against
him by taking a used condom from his house on the day he was arrested and using the specimen
found in it as DNA evidence.
"This defense is very suspicious, especially because the DNA kit was compiled long before
the accused was even identified as a suspect and long before he was arrested.
The accused's own girlfriend testified that they were not using condoms," said the judge.
The judge also said Manaka confirmed that Mogale normally wore a Zion Christian Church
badge or sangoma beads.
That confirmed the evidence of two women who said they were tricked into believing Mogale
was a prophet sent by God to cure them.
They both identified him by the badge and sangoma beads.
Kgomo further rejected Mogale's version that police fabricated the contents of his
confession statement, calling it a "fragment of his own imagination".
Mogale killed 16 women and raped 12 in the Lenasia and Westonaria area between 2008 and
2009.
He was also convicted on numerous counts of theft, kidnapping, sexual assault and escaping
from lawful custody.
One of the alleged victims was 19 years old when Mogale allegedly battered her face with
a brick while raping her in an open veld in Westonaria.
She testified that she had accepted a lift from Mogale and only realised that she was
in danger when he took the wrong turn and became aggressive when she asked where they
were going.
The woman said after the rape, he left her unconscious and bleeding in the veld.
She only woke up the following day and crawled to a nearby road where she was able to get
help.
Mogale allegedly murdered Hanyeleni Mhangwani who had testified against him in a RDP house
fraud case at Westonaria magistrate's court.
He also raped and killed Dipuo Mogadi, Umanikazonke Sindane, Sonto Tsotetsi, Nothembela Ndabisa,
Dipuo Denese, Mamikie Tlallo and nine other women whose bodies have not been identified.
"Evidence showed that a sim card belonging to the accused was inserted in the victim's
missing cellphone.
The accused could not explain how that happened when he was questioned," said Kgomo.
The judge went on to say that evidence indicates that the murders were the work of a serial
killer and it all pointed to Mogale.
"In the light of the totality of evidence, much of which is uncontested such as the DNA
evidence, the admissions and testimonies, it can be confirmed that in all the bodies,
except the one of a child, the cause of death was strangulation.
Bodies were left in sexual positions, naked and raped," said the judge.
"On the day he was arrested, the accused displayed hatred for women, he behaved like
a psychopath and even showing his manhood to the female police officer.
When he met the same policewoman at the station he said "when I come out of here you will
be the first person I rape and kill.
9.
Moses Sithole South Africa's most prolific serial killer
to date, Moses Sithole stands convicted of 38 slayings in a series of "ABC Murders" committed
between January and October 1995.
The crimes received their media nickname from the fact that they began in Atteridgeville
(spawning ground for so many South African slayers), continued in Boksburg, and claimed
more lives in Cleveland.
The victims, all female, were apparently lured or transported to outlying fields where they
were beaten, stripped, raped, and strangled with articles of their own clothing.
Several victims were found with hands tied behind their backs, and one still wore a blindfold.
Many were left with pieces of clothing draped across their faces as if to prevent them from
staring at their killer in death.
South African authorities, virtually overrun by serial killers in the wake of apartheid's
collapse, consulted exFBI Agent Robert Ressler in their search for the "ABC" killer.
Working in conjunction with Dr. Micki Pistorius, Ressler concluded that the murders in all
three communities were linked.
President Nelson Mandela was concerned enough about the crime wave to cancel a scheduled
trip abroad, appearing in Boksburg with high-ranking justice officials, where he appealed for public
help in tracking the strangler.
Police got their break in early October 1995 when a Capetown newspaper, The Star, received
an anonymous telephone call from the slayer.
He identified himself as "the man that is so highly wanted," describing his murders
as an act of revenge for a prior miscarriage of justice.
As describes by the caller, he had been arrested in 1978 for "a crime I didn't do"-specifically,
a rape-and spent the next 14 years in prison, where he was "abused" and "tortured" by fellow
inmates.
To make matters worse, the caller said, his parents and sister had died while he was in
prison.
In retaliation for those wrongs, he explained, "l force a woman to go where I want, and when
I go there I tell them, 'Do you know what?
I was hurt, so I'm doing ¡t now.'
Then I kill them."
When asked how many victims he had killed, the caller claimed 76-twlce as many as police
had found thus far.
To verify his claim, he signed off with directions to the corpse of "a lady I don't think the
police have discovered."
With so many clues in hand, police soon focused their search on Moses Sithole, a 31-year-old
ex-convict and youth counselor who had suddenly dropped out of sight.
Known to use as many as six pseudonyms, he proved an elusive quarry, but a tip directed
them to his hideout in the Johannesburg slum of Benoni on October 18.
Armed with a hatchet when officers approached him, Sithole wounded one policeman before
he was shot and disarmed.
He survived his wounds and was soon transferred from intensive care to a military hospital,
where physicians diagnosed him as HIV-positive.
In custody, he boasted of teaching his victims "a very good lesson" by killing them.
Robert Ressler's profile of the "ABC" killer had suggested the possibility of two TEAM
KILLERS working together, and police initially suspected that Sithole might be an accomplice
of David Selepe, linked to a half-dozen murders of women in Cleveland, but Sithole denied
ever meeting Selepe, and no evidence has been found to connect the two men.
(Selepe, for his part, had nothing to say on the subject.
He was shot dead in December 1994, reportedly after attacking a policeman on a visit to
one of his crime scenes.
The officer who killed him was exonerated on a claim of self-defense.)
A full year passed before Moses Sithole made his first court appearance, on October 22,
1996, formally charged with 38 murders, 40 rapes, and six counts of robbery.
His trial, scheduled to begin on November 14, was postponed when Sithole arrived in
court that morning, his pants drenched in blood.
He was rushed to a hospital, treated for an open knee wound apparently sustained at Pretoria
Central Prison.
When his trial finally convened in February 1997, an American voice expert identified
Sithole as the caller who had boasted of his murders to reporters at The Star.
Sithole had also confessed his crimes in detail to other inmates, some of whom were curiously
equipped with both tape recorders and video cameras, capturing his boasts for posterity.
The long-winded proceedings were delayed once again in August when Sithole started vomiting
blood from a stomach ulcer, but there was no escaping justice.
On December 5, 1997, jurors convicted Sithole on all counts; the following day, he was sentenced
to a prison term of 2,410 years.
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