Cape Town Prostitute Killer

Last updated

Cape Town Prostitute Killer
Other names"The Cape Town Strangler" [1]
Criminal statusUnidentified
Reward amount
R500,000
Details
Victims19
Span of crimes
1992–1996
CountrySouth Africa
State(s) Western Cape
Target(s)
  • Prostitutes
  • Domestic workers
Weapon Garrote
Date apprehended
N/A

The Cape Town Prostitute Killer, also known as TheCape Town Strangler, is an unidentified South African serial killer who fatally strangled 16 prostitutes and three domestic workers in Cape Town between 1992 and 1996. His modus operandi consisted of picking up his victims on rainy nights, fatally strangling them in his car, and dumping their bodies in preselected locations. Although none of the victims were raped, the perpetrator tried to stage them to make it look as if they were.

Contents

One suspect was arrested in connection to one of the murders but released a year later due to a lack of evidence. It was later proven that some of the evidence against him was false.

Murders

Between 1992 and 1996, the killer strangled 16 prostitutes and three domestic workers to death in Cape Town. In the evening, he would pick up a victim in his vehicle along the Voortrekker strip and park his car in a parking lot. There, he would order his victim to take her clothes off and then hit her in the face. Every victim had injuries on their jaws. Afterwards, he would force the victim onto his lap and strangle her to death. He then drove to a preselected spot to dump the body. The rain would wash away the killer's tyre tracks and other forensic evidence. [2]

The perpetrator staged crime scenes in an attempt to stop investigators from linking them to one offender. In some cases, he shallowly buried his victims. Other times, he posed the victims in a sexual manner to make it look as if they had been raped. However, no semen was found and there were no signs of forced penetration on any victim, perhaps meaning the perpetrator was sexually dysfunctional. Additionally, the killer left each victim in a separate area from the last. However, he eventually ran out of new locations to dump the corpses after his eleventh murder, leading to the crimes getting linked. [3]

After the killings were linked, prostitutes gave police their fingerprints and had their photographs taken so that they could be easily identified if they were murdered. Law enforcement personnel also issued posters around the area with emergency phone numbers. As a further precaution, pimps and prostitutes wrote down the registration numbers of every vehicle that picked them up. Nevertheless, seven more victims were murdered, one of whom was 39-year-old Gloria Samuels. Samuels' corpse was found heavily decomposed with a coke bottle inside of her vagina. [2]

The final victim was Theresa van der Vint, a 16-year-old prostitute. On 15 May 1996, she was looking for clients on a tree-lined part of Old Faure Road near the Eerste River. Most prostitutes alongside her were older and went home to care for their children, but van der Vint decided to stay out longer. At dusk, the perpetrator picked her up in his car. A few hours later, her body was discovered half-naked in the sand, concealed with branches, off a footpath near Macassar beach. Her skirt had been pulled up and her legs were spread apart. Her jacket was also wrapped around her face and neck. Her cause of death was strangulation, presumably with a ligature. She was the 19th and youngest victim. [4]

Suspect

One prostitute told a sergeant that one of her clients had a fantasy about putting Coke bottles into women's genitals. He was an unemployed elderly man who lived in a caravan just off Voortrekker Road. The man had difficulty getting erect and frequently socialized with prostitutes. He also drove a blue and white bakkie, which matched the description of a vehicle that had been seen close to where Samuels' body was found. His ex-wife stated that he often disappeared for hours at a time without explaining his whereabouts. The man claimed that he had blackouts and suffered from amnesia. However, when he went to a hospital the day after Samuels' murder, doctors determined he suffered no symptoms of memory loss. [2]

Detectives brought the man into questioning in April 1996. During the interview, the suspect stated that although he could have killed the woman, he had no memory of it. He was released and remained free until 21 June 1996. That day, he called the local police control room and threatened that once his bakkie was in working order again, more women would be killed. The call was recorded and the voice matched the suspect. He was subsequently arrested and taken to the Pollsmoor Penitentiary. While imprisoned, he befriended Norman Afzal Simons, a murderer known as "The Station Strangler." A search of the suspect's bakkie revealed fingerprints of Katrina Seliston, the strangler's sixteenth victim. He was charged with that murder, but released from prison in September 1997 due to a lack of evidence. [2] Years later, a police officer was exposed for planting Seliston's fingerprints on the suspect's vehicle. [5]

Victims

#NameAgeDate of murderBody found
1Christene Fieltyn2228 October 1992Atlantis
2Elizabeth Martincich2912 March 1993Worcester
3Sarah Meintjies2913 March 1993Philadelphia
4Francina Manuel3031 March 1993Durbanville
5Unknown?8 July 1993Kraaifontein
6Nolundi Mbukwana238 September 1993Gordons Bay
7Elmarie Engelbrecht221 March 1994Worcester
8Susan Opperman3412 June 1994Gordons Bay
9Margaret Phillips238 July 1994Somerset West
10Bridgette Lindt2810 August 1994Milnerton
11Shireen Jooste389 September 1995Philadelphia
12Marilyn Persent3015 September 1995Milnerton
13Patricia Gibson3520 September 1995Camps Bay
14Shahieda Abrahams3113 October 1995Durbanville
15Gloria Samuels393 January 1996Durbanville
16Francis Seliston?24 March 1996Brackenfell
17Katrina Fredericks?7 April 1996Brackenfell
18Elizabeth Thompson?14 April 1996Brackenfell
19Theresa van der Vint1615 May 1996Macassar
Ref: [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Ressler</span> FBI criminal profiler (1937–2013)

Robert Kenneth Ressler was an American FBI agent and author. He played a significant role in the psychological profiling of violent offenders in the 1970s and is often credited with coining the term "serial killer", though the term is a direct translation of the German term Serienmörder coined in 1930 by Berlin investigator Ernst Gennat. After retiring from the FBI, he authored a number of books on serial murders, and often gave lectures on criminology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Hayes (serial killer)</span> American convicted serial killer

Robert Tyrone Hayes is an American serial killer who has been convicted of three murders in the Daytona Beach, Florida, area between December 2005 and February 2006. DNA tests have also linked him to a fourth murder committed in March 2016. In addition, he remains the prime suspect in the murder of another woman in December 2007.

Sipho Mandla Agmatir Thwala is a South African rapist and serial killer who was convicted in 1999 for the murders of 16 women and 10 rapes. He was sentenced to 506 years in prison. Thwala was known by the moniker the Phoenix Strangler.

Micki Pistorius is a South African forensic or investigative psychologist and author. She was the first woman in her profession and the first profiler in South Africa, working on many high-profile cases involving serial killers for the South African Police Service in the 1990s.

Stewart Wilken, known as the Boetie Boer, is a convicted serial killer from South Africa, who was active in the coastal city of Port Elizabeth.

Norman Afzal Simons, known as the Station Strangler, is a South African murderer, rapist and suspected serial killer in Cape Town in the late 20th century. He was convicted in 1995 of the rape and murder of 10-year-old Elroy van Rooyen in 1995 and sentenced to 25 years. He became eligible for parole in July 2023 and was released on parole and under 24-hour monitoring in November 2023.

Agustín Salas del Valle is a Mexican murderer. It is believed that he murdered more than 20 women in the Central Zone between 1989 and 1993; although he was only condemned for one of the homicides. He was known as "Jack the Strangler", "The Women Strangler" and "The Mata-Meretrices".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Little</span> American serial killer (1940–2020)

Samuel Little was an American serial killer of women who confessed to committing 93 murders between 1970 and 2005. The Federal Bureau of Investigation's Violent Criminal Apprehension Program has confirmed his involvement in at least 60 murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in American history. Little provided sketches for twenty-six of his victims although not all have been linked to known murders.

Raymond J. Lassor is an American serial killer who strangled to death three women, and attempted to murder a fourth, in the span of a little over two months in 1984. He later became the first criminal to be successfully prosecuted under the newly enacted Rhode Island "Life Without Parole Statute", headed by prosecutor Jeffrey B. Pine, and promptly received life imprisonment without parole for his crimes.

The Denver Prostitute Killer was an American serial killer responsible for the murder of at least 17 women and girls in Denver and its various suburbs between 1975 and 1995. In 2005, based upon results from DNA profiling, it was determined that the most likely killer was Billy Edwin Reid who was previously arrested and charged with the 1989 murder of Lannell Williams and Lisa Kelly. Reid was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for those specific murders. The killings were grouped together only in 2008 – until then, each of these crimes was considered to have been committed by different people.

Ray Shawn Jackson, known as The Gillham Park Strangler, is an American serial killer who strangled to death six women in Kansas City, Missouri from 1989 to 1990, dumping the victims' bodies in the area surrounding Gilliam Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Billy Edwin Reid</span> American murderer and suspected serial killer

Billy Edwin Reid is an American murderer and a suspect in the murders of at least 17 women in Denver, Colorado between 1975 and 1995. The murders were grouped together only in 2008, before then they were thought to have been committed by different perpetrators. In 2005, based upon results from DNA profiling, Reid was tied to the 1989 murders of Lannell Williams and Lisa Kelly, and authorities suspect him in more.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Luo Shubiao</span> Executed Chinese serial killer

Luo Shubiao, known as The Rainy Night Butcher, was a Chinese serial killer and rapist. After committing a rape-murder in 1977 and serving a prison sentence for theft, he started targeting young women around Guangzhou, killing a further eighteen victims from 1990 to 1994. Luo would be convicted of these murders and subsequently executed a year later.

Richard Jabulani Nyauza is a South African serial killer and rapist who murdered 16 women in and around the Rossway Quarry. Shortly after becoming infected with HIV in 2002, Nyauza murdered his first five victims near Olievenhoutbosch. Later that year, he was arrested for attempting to rape a child, but was released in 2005 after being found not guilty. Weeks later, he began murdering women again in an area about 2.8 kilometres away from the area the original murders occurred in. Nyauza murdered 11 more women until his arrest in 2006. Following his trial, he was found guilty and given 16 life sentences as well as an additional 140 years imprisonment.

Cornelius Burger was a South African serial killer who, between 1936 and 1937, murdered five prostitutes in Johannesburg and took their handbags as souvenirs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Riaan Stander</span> South African serial killer

Riaan Stander is a South African serial killer who murdered two prostitutes in Port Elizabeth in August 2007. His modus operandi consisted of picking up prostitutes in the evening, taking them back to his flatlet, slitting their throats with a bread knife, and dumping their bodies nearby. He was apprehended shortly after his final murder and sentenced to life imprisonment at his trial the following year. He had previously been convicted of culpable homicide after he fatally struck a woman with his vehicle in 2001.

Brydon Brandt is a South African serial killer who murdered at least four people in the Eastern Cape between 1989 and 1997. He first murdered two prostitutes after picking them up from bars in Port Elizabeth, then a female roommate in 1996. The next year, he murdered a male roommate during an argument and was arrested after other residents of the boarding house alerted the police. He subsequently confessed to all of the murders and pleaded guilty to them in 1999. He is now serving four life sentences.

Lazarus Tshidiso Mazingane, also known as The Nasrec serial killer, is a South African serial killer who murdered at least 16.

The Nassau County serial murders were a series of murders of young women committed between 1984 and 1989 in Nassau County, New York. All the victims had been involved in prostitution or had drug addictions, and the perpetrator, a possible serial killer, was never apprehended.

References

  1. Ramsland, Katherine (2013). The Human Predator: A Historical Chronicle of Serial Murder and Forensic Investigation. Penguin. ISBN   9781101619056. Archived from the original on 20 March 2023. Retrieved 27 September 2023.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  2. 1 2 3 4 Pistorius, Micki (2012). "The Cape Town Prostitute Killer". Strangers On The Street - Serial homicide in South Africa. South Africa: Penguin Random House. ISBN   9780143527176.
  3. Pistorius, Micki (2012). "5: The Cape Town Prostitute Killer". Catch me a Killer: Serial murders. South Africa: Penguin Random House. ISBN   9780143526827.
  4. 1 2 Geldenhuys, Henriëtte (8 February 2014). "Serial killer who terrorised sex workers". IOL . Archived from the original on 30 January 2020. Retrieved 20 March 2023.
  5. Geldenhuys, Henriette (28 August 2005). "South Africa: 'Miscarriage of Justice' Gives Lawyer Grey Hair" . Sunday Times. Johannesburg. Retrieved 20 March 2023 via AllAfrica.