Sleepy Hollow Killer

Last updated

Sleepy Hollow Killer
Other namesSleepy Hollow Murderer
Details
Victims13–16+
Span of crimes
1990s–2007
Country South Africa
State(s) KwaZulu-Natal, possibly also Free State and Eastern Cape

The Sleepy Hollow Killer is the name of an unidentified South African rapist and serial killer, thought to be responsible for the rapes and murders of at least 13 women, most likely sex workers, around Pietermaritzburg and the Midlands of KwaZulu-Natal. His signature was to strangle his victims using their panties, a characteristic shared with the murders of three prostitutes in 2007, who are also considered possible victims. [1] [2]

Contents

Murders

In the late 1990s, several women were raped and then strangled with their own panties in Pietermaritzburg, with their bodies later being found near the N3 Highway. [1] In 2001, authorities began an inquest into the murders, exhuming seven of the murdered women's corpses from graves in Mountain Rise and Mpophomeni, in an attempt to identify them through facial reconstruction. However, the investigation led nowhere, and it closed that same year. [2]

2007 killings

Between February and October 2007, the bodies of three black women were found near the N3 Highway's vicinity. The first victim was found behind the ML Sultan High School, the second near Liberty Midlands Mall in June and the last was found in October between Hilton and Peter Brown Drive. [1] [2] Like the 1990s victims, they were raped and strangled with their panties, the only difference being that they were burned severely after death. [2] Aside from them, bodies bearing the same signature were reportedly discovered from places as far as Bloemfontein and Port Elizabeth. [1]

Superintendent Henry Budhram later announced that a special task team, supervised by Senior Superintendent Gops Govender, would investigate the murders and examine all the circumstances, modus operandi and material evidence for all cases. [1] [2]

Possible suspect

On January 30, 2008, a 32-year-old man was arrested in Mpophomeni for allegedly murdering a 30-year-old woman near Howick, in a small settlement called Curry's Post. Her body was found by a passer-by in a forest, partially naked, with a belt tying her legs and hands and open wounds to her head. It was also alleged that she might have been raped. [3]

When questioned about the case, Superintendent Budhram said he did not believe this death was linked to the victims of the Sleepy Hollow Killer. [3]

See also

Related Research Articles

The Hillside Strangler, later the Hillside Stranglers, is the media epithet for one, later discovered to be two, American serial killers who terrorized Los Angeles, California, between October 1977 and February 1978, with the nicknames originating from the fact that many of the victims' bodies were discovered in the hills surrounding the city.

Moses Sithole is a South African serial killer and rapist who committed the ABC Murders, so named because they began in Atteridgeville, continued in Boksburg and finished in Cleveland, a suburb of Johannesburg. Sithole murdered at least 37 women and one toddler between 16 July 1994 and 6 November 1995.

Ronald Joseph Dominique, known as the Bayou Strangler, is an American serial killer and rapist who murdered at least 23 men and boys in the state of Louisiana between 1997 and 2006. On September 23, 2008, Dominique was found guilty and sentenced to several terms of life imprisonment without parole for his crimes. Following his conviction, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stated that Dominique's was the most significant serial homicide case in the country over the past two decades in terms of both death toll and duration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lorenzo Gilyard</span> Convicted American serial killer

Lorenzo Jerome Gilyard, Jr., known as The Kansas City Strangler, is an American serial killer. A former trash company supervisor, Gilyard is believed to have raped and murdered at least 13 women and girls from 1977 to 1993. He was convicted of six counts of murder on March 16, 2007.

<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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Tobin</span> Scottish serial killer (1946–2022)

Peter Britton Tobin was a Scottish convicted serial killer and sex offender who served a whole life order at HM Prison Edinburgh for three murders committed between 1991 and 2006. Police also investigated Tobin over the deaths and disappearances of other young women and girls.

Nicholas Lungisa Ncama is a South African serial killer who was convicted in 1997 of 3 murders and sentenced to life in prison. His victims all came from the Port Elizabeth area of the Eastern Cape.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Vincent Gillis</span> American serial killer, rapist, cannibal, stalker and kidnapper

Sean Vincent Gillis is an American serial killer, rapist, and necrophile who stalked and murdered eight Louisiana women between 1994 and 2004 in the Baton Rouge Metro and surrounding areas. He was arrested without incident at his residence on Burgin Ave at 1:30 a.m. on April 29, 2004. In his initial arrest, he was charged with three counts of first degree murder and three counts of ritualistic acts in the murders of 29-year-old Katherine Hall, 45-year-old Johnnie Mae Williams and 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston. Gillis confessed to the murders with little coercion and then informed investigators about five other women whom he had murdered.

Satish Kumar, better known simply as Satish, is a convicted Indian pedophile and serial killer who was active in Bahadurgarh in Haryana from 1995 to 1998. He admitted kidnapping and attempting to rape fourteen girls, murdering ten. Police confirmed Satish's involvement in twelve cases, including the ten murders. Since his victims were all five to nine years of age, he is also known as the Bahadurgarh baby killer.

Marco Metzler is a German serial killer, who attacked women on the highways between Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia from 2003 to 2006, raping four and killing three of them.

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

Samuel Little was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 women between 1970 and 2005. In 2014 he was convicted of the murders of Carol Ilene Elford, Guadalupe Duarte Apodaca, and Audrey Nelson Everett, and in 2018 for the murder of Denise Christie Brothers. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) has confirmed Little's involvement in at least 60 of the 93 confessed murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in United States history.

Polatbay Turganbekovich Berdaliyev is an Uzbekistani rapist and serial killer who, along with accomplices Abduseit Ormanov and two other unidentified men, was responsible for killing 11 women in both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan from 2011 to 2012. Berdaliyev and Ormanov were both sentenced to life imprisonment in both countries, while the other members of their group are still sought after.

The Mitsero murders were a series of murders on the island of Cyprus committed by 35-year-old Cypriot Army officer Nikos Metaxas, also known as Orestis, taking place between September 2016 and August 2018. Five of his seven victims were female foreigners he had met on the online dating site Badoo. The remaining two victims were young children, and were the daughters of two of the women he had killed.

Dr. No is the nickname given to a suspected American serial killer thought to be responsible for the murders of at least nine women and girls in Ohio, between 1981 and 1990. As victims, he primarily chose prostitutes working in parking lots and truck stops located alongside Interstate 71. There are suspicions that he committed three similar killings in New York, Illinois and Pennsylvania, between 1986 and 1988.

Andries Makgae is a South African serial killer and rapist who raped and murdered at least three women in Onderstepoort between 2012 and 2013. Suspected of other similar murders and the supposed killing of his best friend. He was convicted and sentenced to three life imprisonment terms for his crimes.

The Package Killer is the name attributed to an American serial killer who murdered between three and five women in the St. Louis area from 1990 to 1991. His pseudonym comes from the receptacles the victims were sometimes found in.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Kappen</span> Welsh serial killer (1941–1990)

Joseph William Kappen, also known as the Saturday Night Strangler, was a Welsh serial killer who committed the rape and murder of three teenage girls in Llandarcy and Tonmawr, near his home town of Port Talbot, in 1973. Kappen is also suspected of committing a fourth murder in February 1976.

Alun Kyte, known as the Midlands Ripper, is an English double murderer and suspected serial killer. He was convicted in 2000 of the murders of two sex workers, 20-year-old Samo Paull and 30-year-old Tracey Turner, whom he killed in December 1993 and March 1994 respectively. After his conviction, investigators announced their suspicions that Kyte could have been behind a number of other unsolved murders of sex workers across Britain in the 1980s and 1990s. He was apprehended due to the ground-breaking investigations of a wider police enquiry named Operation Enigma, which was launched in 1996 in response to the murders of Paull, Turner and of a large number of other sex workers. Kyte was sentenced to a minimum of 25 years imprisonment for the murders of Paull and Turner.

Omid Barak, known as The Highway Killer, was an Iranian serial killer who strangled ten women from 2006 to 2008. Most of his killings occurred in the city of Karaj and the surrounding areas.

Sean Patrick Goble, known as The Interstate Killer, is an American serial killer. A former truck driver, Goble kidnapped and murdered at least three women along highways in North Carolina and Tennessee during the winter of 1995. In addition authorities in ten other states investigated him for numerous other killings committed during the late 1980s and early 1990s. While he was cleared in some of those cases, as of today, his true victim count remains unknown.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Serial killer in Pietermaritzburg: report". Independent Online. 28 January 2008.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Sherlissa Peters (4 February 2008). "Serial killer may be at large in KZN". Independent Online.
  3. 1 2 "Man held for Howick murder". Independent Online. 30 January 2008.