Download PDFIn 2017 a lot of rape cases were reported by community members in different South African Police Services (SAPS) stations on the Eastrand of Gauteng (Ekurhuleni), such as Daveyton, Benoni, Putfontein and Etwatwa. When the cases were compared with each other it was found that there was a lot of similarities in how it happened and the description of the allegedly accused was also similar.
Police officers and the Daveyton, Benoni, Putfontein and Etwatwa police stations then came together and decided to gather all the cases and statements and create an identikit (a picture of a person, reconstructed from typical facial features according to the victims’ descriptions). An alert was also sent out in search of the man whose identity remains unknown.
It was also found that with at least 68 cases according to the National Prosecuting Authority, the man has been on the police’s wanted list for more than eight years, with no luck in catching him until this year.
It is suspected that the man went into hiding for almost three years. In July 2020, a 13-year-old girl in Benoni reported a case of rape and identified the wanted man as her rapist after being shown the identikit. Since then the man has been identified to be the perpetrator in a number of other cases of rape or attempted rape in the Ekurhuleni region.
The families of the victims have shared with public how the perpetrator operated. In one case he pretended to be contract worker working for the Ekurhuleni municipality and in another case he pretended to be a railway security guard. In another case that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic, he tricked a mother at her home by saying she had to quickly rush to a park in the area to register for a food parcel so that he could prey on her daughter still in the house.
In February this year, after another rape case was reported in Ekurhuleni, the perpetrator’s picture was again circulated throughout all social media platforms and posted in all neighbouring communities in and around Daveyton and Etwatwa. The police also decided to put out a cash reward for anyone with any information that could assist the investigation in locating him.
While the picture of him was being circulated by the Gauteng police, they received an alert on 9 March 2021 from one of his victims who saw him in Crystal Park (in Benoni). He was also suspected to be the perpetrator of a rape that happened the previous day and an attempted rape that took place the week before in Etwatwa so the police searched the immediate surrounding areas after receiving the alert and finally caught him in Barcelona (a section in Etwatwa).
A video of the perpetrator circulated on all social media platforms soon after he was caught near the clinic where he tried to rape a young girl. In the video it showed that it helped that the police were there because that the community members were really angry and would have done anything to him.
The mother of one of his victims was also there and asked him; “why did you rape my daughter and how would it feel if it was your sister or even daughter?” The man remained silent and did not show any remorse although he was scared of what the community might do to him.
This article was submitted on 18 March 2021. You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and Karibu! Online (www.Karibu.org.za), and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.
