Moses Sithole

Moses Sithole
Born (1964-11-17) 17 November 1964
Vosloorus, South Africa
Other names The ABC Killer
The South African Strangler
The Gauteng Killer
Criminal penalty 2,410 years' imprisonment
Conviction(s) Murder
Rape
Robbery
Details
Victims 38+
Span of crimes
 1994–1995
Country South Africa
Date apprehended
 18 October 1995

Moses Sithole (born 17 November 1964) is a South African serial killer and rapist who committed the ABC Murders,[1] so named because they began in Atteridgeville, continued in Boksburg and finished in Cleveland, a suburb of Johannesburg.

Early life

Moses Sithole was born in 1964 in Vosloorus, a poor township near Boksburg, Transvaal Province (now Gauteng). When he was 5, his father died, and his mother abandoned the family.[2] Sithole and his siblings spent the next three years in an orphanage, where he later said they were mistreated. By his own account, Sithole was arrested for rape in his teens and spent seven years in prison.[2] He later blamed his imprisonment for turning him into a murderer. He explained his crimes by saying that the women he murdered all reminded him of the women who had falsely accused him of rape years before.[2]

Murders

To the people around him, Sithole appeared to be a mild-mannered individual. At the time of his crimes, he was managing a shell organization, Youth Against Human Abuse, ostensibly devoted to the eradication of child abuse. All of his victims were black females interviewing for positions with Sithole's ersatz charity. Sithole would take them to remote fields, and proceeded to beat, rape, and murder them. They were generally strangled with their own underwear.[2] He would then write the word "bitch" on their dead bodies before dumping them.[2] The first set of murders took place in the township of Atteridgeville, near Pretoria.

After a while, Sithole moved his focus to Boksburg and eventually to Cleveland. By 1995, he had claimed over thirty victims, sparking nationwide panic. In some cases, he would later phone the victims' families for no other apparent reason than to taunt them.[3] At one point, President Nelson Mandela visited Boksburg in person to appeal for public assistance in apprehending the killer.[2]

Capture

In August 1995, Sithole was identified as having been seen with one of the victims. After SAPS investigators learned details of his previous rape conviction, he disappeared. In October 1995, Sithole contacted South African journalist Tamsen de Beer and identified himself as the wanted murderer.[2] During a phone conversation to de Beer, he indicated that the killings were carried out in revenge for his unjust imprisonment and claimed 76 victims, twice as many as those reported. Finally, in order to prove his identity, Sithole gave directions to where one of the bodies had been left.[4] Local authorities subsequently cornered Sithole in Johannesburg, shooting the suspect when he attacked a constable with a hatchet. Sithole was driven to the hospital, where he was found to be HIV positive.[2][5]

Trial and imprisonment

On 5 December 1997, Sithole was sentenced to fifty years' imprisonment for each of the thirty-eight murders, twelve years' imprisonment for each of the forty rapes, and five years' imprisonment for each of six robberies. Since his sentences run consecutively, the total effective sentence is one of 2,410 years. Justice David Carstairs ordered that Sithole would be required to serve at least 930 years before being eligible for parole. The judge also told Sithole that had capital punishment not been abolished, he would have been sentenced to death. Sithole was incarcerated in C-Max, the maximum security section of Pretoria Central Prison. He is currently incarcerated in Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kendal, Rebekah (3 May 2007). "Worst criminals of SA". iafrica.com. Retrieved 3 January 2011.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Greig, Charlotte (2005). Evil Serial Killers: In the Minds of Monsters. New York: Barnes & Noble. p. 176. ISBN 0760775664.
  3. ↑ A&E Biography - Moses Sithole
  4. ↑ Greig, Charlotte (2005). Evil Serial Killers: In the Minds of Monsters. New York: Barnes & Noble. p. 177. ISBN 0760775664.
  5. ↑ "South African Strangler: Moses Sithole". Notorious. The Biography Channel.
  • Newton, Michael (2000). The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. New York: Checkmark Books. p. 207. ISBN 0-8160-3979-8.
  • Ströhm, Martin. "Graveyard". Crime Library. Retrieved 2008-10-26.
  • von Nekerk, Philip (October 2000). "A Time to Kill". Maxim. maximonline.com. Archived from the original on 17 December 2007.
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