Boksburg Jane Does were three unidentified women[1] found in a mass grave with other identified victims near the city of Boksburg on 17 September 1995. They are the 31st, 32nd, and 33rd victims to be connected to Moses Sithole, AKA The ABC Killer, as well as his sixth, seventh, and eighth unidentified victims.
Case[]
The first victim was discovered on the evening of 16 September in the veld near the Van Dyk Mine by a police reservist hunting rabbits with his dogs. In the next couple of days, more than 30 police officers, detectives, and forensic experts searched the area, finding the bodies of about 10 women within a radius of 300 yards. The crime scene, more than three miles from the Boksburg Prison, received an intense amount of media attention, with even South African President Nelson Mandela coming out to the site to meet the investigators.
A number of items, including black and red candles, mirrors, feathers, knives, and lingerie, were recovered in ant heaps across the crime scene. This led to the initial theory that the women were victims of muti ritual killings for traditional medicine practices. However, the forensic experts were able to connect the mass grave to a bigger string of murders that were occurring around the Gauteng Province.
In October 1995, Sithole was arrested after being publicly sought as the prime suspect in the case since August 1995. After his arrest, he was determined to be responsible for the sexual assault and murder of 37 women and one male toddler between July 1994 and November 1995 across the Gauteng Province. He had lured his victims by enticing them for job interviews at a shell company he owned. He would then take them to remote fields and then assault and kill them. More than ten of his victims remain unidentified. No descriptions of the unidentified victims are currently available, except that they were young to middle-aged black women, and they have since been buried in pauper's graves.
It should be noted that Sithole's list of victims includes victims initially thought to have been committed by another man named David Selepe. Selepe was suspected of being behind the initial murder spree based on his oral confession and his fitting the psychological profile of the killer. Selepe was shot in self-defense by the police on 18 December 1994 while leading them to where he buried the body of a victim. The relationship between the two, if any, remains unknown.
Sithole was convicted of 38 charges of murder, 40 charges of rape, and six robberies. He was sentenced to 2,410 consecutive years and is currently incarcerated at the Mangaung Correctional Centre.
Sources[]
- Crime Library (Moses Sithole)
- Crime Library (David Selepe)
- The South African
- Moses Sithole on Wikipedia
Footnotes[]
- ↑ At least one source, Crime Library, indicates four unidentified victims.