Nigel Cawthorne: The Mammoth Book of Killers at Large

While Sithole was in jail, he met a woman named Martha who was visiting one of her relatives, another inmate. They began writing to each other and, when he was released in 1993, he moved in with her in Soshanguve. But when Martha fell pregnant, she returned to her parents in Atteridgeville. Sithole followed some months later. On 5 December 1994, Martha gave birth to a baby girl they named Bridget. In February 1995, after his killing spree had started, Sithole paid lobola —the traditional bride-price—for Martha. But soon they separated, leaving Sithole apparently to sleep at railway stations.

Nevertheless, Martha had visited her husband three times after he was arrested. But then on 28 October, it revealed that Sithole was HIV-positive. He had probably contracted the disease from one of his victims. After that, Martha would have nothing further to do with him. The police were lambasted for not telling Martha of his condition.

Meanwhile, the detectives began the laborious and unpleasant business of questioning Sithole in his hospital bed. Both Captains Frans van Niekerk and Vinol Viljoen visited Sithole in the Military Hospital, but Sithole was unforthcoming. It was only when a female detective was brought in that he began describing his crimes, masturbating while he did so.

According to The Star , Sithole told detective: “I can point out the place in Atteridgeville, as well as in Hercules. That’s where I started. Nearer to Johannesburg I did not kill people, because that’s where I stayed. I did not even count… Atteridgeville I killed many about 10. I caught them with my hands around the neck and strangled them. I thought of something to tie them up… I used stockings. I placed it around their necks.”

He chose the locations before the victims and claimed he raped only the pretty ones. He also said that he killed only during daytime, though he did not like the sight of blood.

According to the Beeld , he also said: “I heard fuck-all if they spoke to me and thought about other things.” And he forced the women to look down while he raped and killed them and he would masturbate while he watched them die.

There were certainly glaring disparities between Sithole and the profile of the killer Ressler and Pistorius had come up with. Sleeping on railway stations, he did not have an expensive car like David Selepe. And he denied working with an accomplice as they had speculated, though he claimed that some of the killings he had been accused of had been committed by copycats.

In court, all the confessions he was supposed to have made were disputed. Sithole’s lawyer said that he had been provided with a list of victims’ names and other details, then been forced to confess his “guilt” in interviews that were recorded. This is hardly an unusual courtroom ploy but, in this case, the police were their own worst enemies. According to the detectives, Sithole had waived his right to legal representation during the questioning. When public defender Tony Richard arrived at the hospital he was told this, but he insisted on speaking to Sithole himself, who told him that his wife was getting a lawyer for him. Nevertheless the police continued to question Sithole without a lawyer being present. The police then brought in a magistrate to record Sithole’s confession. However, Magistrate Greyvenstein noted that Sithole was in pain and, when she asked him why he had no lawyer, he said he had been not been able to get one because the police had not allowed him to see anyone. Consequently Greyvenstein refused to take his confession. At the trial Sithole claimed that the police were infuriated by this and told him that he would “see shit” if he did not give his confession to a second magistrate—which he duly did.

On 3 November, Sithole was moved to a solitary cell in Boksburg Prison. When he was taken out to identify the crime scenes, he complained of pain due to his injuries. He took the detectives to a number of locations where bodies had been left. And on 6 November, he took them to the Gosforth Park mine slag heaps west of Germiston, where they found the body of another unidentified—and, as yet, undiscovered—woman who would go to an unmarked grave.

On 13 November 1995, Sithole appeared on crutches in Brakpan Magistrates’ Court which was guarded by heavily armed police officers and sealed off with razor wire to protect him from relatives and other outraged members of the public. For further security he was shuffled through at 7.30 in the morning. On 5 December, he was transferred to the Krugersdorp Prison, so a psychiatric report could be prepared at the nearby Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital. It was determined that he was fit to stand trial.

In September, Sithole was provided with a new attorney named Eben Jordaan, a private practitioner whose discounted fees would be picked up by the state. Then it was finally announced that Moses Sithole would stand trial for 40 counts of rape, 6 counts of robbery and 38 counts of murder. As part of that total another murder had been added to the charge sheet. The new victim was 22-year-old Rose Rebothile Mogotsi. She had last been seen on 15 September when she went to look for work. Her body was found in Boksburg three days later.

Controversially, four of the murders were slayings Cleveland killer David Selepe had been charged with. The victims were 18year-old Maria Monene Monama, 24-year-old Refilwe Amanda Mokale, 32-year-old Joyce Thakane Mashabela and 26-year-old Amanda Kebofile Thethe—whose murder scene Selepe had been visiting when he had been shot. The newspapers, who had never accepted the police account of Selepe’s death, went wild.

Asked any of these four were included in the six victims police claimed were positively linked to Selepe at the turn of 1994, they refused to comment “as the Sithole case is considered to be sub judice, ” according to the Cape Times . The names of the six supposedly connected to Selepe have never been released.

Sithole’s trial eventually began on 21 October 1996. He was now being called the “ABC Killer”—A for Atteridge, B for Boksburg and C for Cleveland—and pleaded not guilty to all of the charges with a grin on his face.

The first three charges to be heard concerned rapes that occurred in 1987 and 1988. Although the names of rape victims who survived to testify are usually suppressed, these brave women identified themselves in court in the hope that their attacker would be locked away forever.

Twenty-nine-year-old Patricia Khumalo was the first to testify. In September 1987, she was looking for work and her sister introduced her to a man named “Martin” who they both identified as Moses Sithole in court. Martin said he had work for Patricia and on the 14th she got on the train with him in Boksburg. Alighting at Geldenhuis station, Martin said that he knew a short cut through the veldt. There he attacked her.

“He grabbed me by the clothes in front of my chest,” she said. “I was frightened. He ordered me to lie on the ground and raped me.” He raped her more than once. “I pleaded and cried and asked him not to kill me. He said he wouldn’t, because I have the kind of eyes that makes him feel sorry.” It was the day before her daughter’s birthday.

Her attacker had tied her hands with her bra and pulled her dress over her head, then ordered her to stay there while he made his escape. Patricia Khumalo cried as she related this ordeal. In the dock, Sithole smiled.

Sithole’s attorney Eben Jordaan asked Patricia Khumalo whether her attacker had not rather been David Selepe. She said no. She had recognized the picture of Sithole in the newspapers after he had been arrested and she recognized him here in court.

In September 1988, Thembi Ngwenya was working in a clothes shop when she met a man who offered her a job that paid better. But before she handed in her notice, she thought of her friend 26-year-old Dorcas Kedibone Khobane, who was unemployed, and she put them in touch. On 28 September, Dorcas Khobane accompanied the man, who identified himself as “Samson”, to Cleveland. Again they stopped at Geldenhuis station and took a shortcut through the veldt. There he hit her and pulled a knife.