The investigating officer in the case against suspected serial rapist, Sifiso Mkhwanazi, on trial for killing six sex workers, has rubbished claims made by the accused that his crimes were not pre-meditated, but a mistake.
The case began on February 1 at the Gauteng High Court, Johannesburg, sitting at the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court.
The evidence seems to suggest that Mkhwanazi, 21, planned the murders as a way to avenge his earlier 10-month prison stint on a false rape charge.
Mkhwanazi faces six counts of murder, rape and aggravating circumstances after six bodies were discovered at his father’s warehouse in October 2022, more than six moths after the disappearance of the fist victim.
While submitting gruesome evidence, made up of photographs of the victims, the investigating officer, Bongani Mbonambi, testified that all the evidence pointed to a pre-determined and planned killing spree rather than a mistaken incident.
Mbonambi said if the accused had really made a mistake, he would have stayed away from pursuing sex workers after he was allegedly falsely accused of rape and spent at least 10 months in jail, before he was acquitted.
Mbonambi was giving evidence on some of the key findings of his team’s investigation into the disappearance and eventual death of six alleged sex workers who plied their trade on the streets of Johannesburg.
“Clearly this was an act of revenge as he has previously admitted. What we suspect is that he was going to stay away from any business that has to do with sex workers, but he went back there and went to his father’s factory.
“Even though he says it was consensual (sex), he was still angry and there could have been a disagreement between them and he killed the first victim and concealed the body,” Mbonambi said.
Had the accused made a mistake with the first murder, he would not have gone back to the streets of Joburg to search for the second, third and up to the sixth victim, he testified.
“Let us accept the first murder as being a mistake, but what are his actions after the first mistake?
“He goes back to the street to pick up another victim like someone who picks a fish from a pond. He did the same until there were six of them. He claims he did not want to go back to prison but he continues to do the same again and again. So this can’t be a mistake but a pre-determined plan,” he said.
When it comes to the similarities in all the victims’ bodies, the officer said all the victims had ropes tied to their backs, neck and legs, which also suggests someone had planned the murders.
The victims were dragged into a room known to the accused that it was not in use, Mbonambi said. It is here that the police found used condoms, and blood stains which had been cleaned up in an attempt to conceal the evidence.
“There were used condoms in one of the rooms that were not in use. Our investigation also made use of DNA sampling to match the victims with their families.
“There were four different DNAs and we did a comparison of the condoms, stained blood and this matched DNA samples of the three victims. The conclusion is that this room was used as a slaughter house.
“Even on the stairways leading to that room, there was blood, indicating that the bodies were dragged from there. There were attempts to clean up the blood but our experts were able to pick this up,” he said.
There was no evidence that the victims were shot dead after a ballistic report cleared two of the guns.
The matter was postponed to Monday, February 19, after the accused’s legal representative took ill just before lunch.
The Star