It Begins
It was September 12, 1994, a mere four and a half months since, for the first time in South Africa’s history, all adult citizens were allowed to elect a ruling party. Apartheid was legally dead and a divided country was trying to heal the deep scars left by decades of injustice. Blacks still mistrusted police, a legacy from when a fearful minority used the force to instill fear and order in an oppressed majority. On this day, the police revealed that someone was preying on black women in Cleveland, an industrial suburb of the Place of Gold, Johannesburg. Three bodies had been found since the beginning of September. The circumstances surrounding each discovery were very similar.
In the ensuing months, the police would show that they had already begun to move away from a Force to a Service, although the official name change was still some months away. The detectives would be relentless in their effort to protect other black women.
The first body was found on September 3 in bushes near the Jupiter train station next to Heriotdale. On September 7, the second body was found next to the M2 freeway, on the other side of Heriotdale. Later that same day, the third body was found near a mine dump in the same area. None of the women had anything near them to aid in their identification, but their clothes indicated that they had been neatly dressed. When they were discovered, they were partly nude, and, from all appearances, had been raped and strangled.
The police had difficulty identifying the women, despite wide media coverage. Identifying the victims is of particular importance in a serial murder investigation because details of the person’s last-known activities may reveal where victim and killer met, and careful study may unveil a pattern among the victims. Serial killers, after all, are known to target a specific type of victim, whether the criteria are subtle or obvious.
The first victim would only be identified nine days later, and she wasn’t one of the three. The woman had already been killed and discovered in July.
While reports of a possible serial killer began to circulate in the media, the Brixton Murder and Robbery Unit took over the dockets and linked two more women, who had been discovered in the same area on July 16 and 31, to the series.
On September 19, the sixth body was found near a mine dump in Heriotdale. Her jersey had been pulled over her head and her dress pushed up above her hips. Detectives remained puzzled that none of the women had apparently been reported missing.
On September 21, 140 police officers, two dogs and a police helicopter searched the Heriotdale and surrounding area of Cleveland, where all six bodies had been found within a radius of a little more than 3 miles. They were rewarded with the discovery of two more bodies in advanced decomposition, as well as many pieces of female underwear. Their clothes had been pushed up under their arms and they appeared to have been strangled with either their belts or undergarments.
This discovery brought the total to eight dead women. All black. All well-dressed. All aged between 23-30.
But there was also a ray of light on this 21st day of a very dark month. The woman who had been found on July 31 was identified by her husband. She was Hermina Papenfus, aged 25, a nurse at the Sandringham Clinic. Police were busy preparing identikits of the other women to release through the media.
On September 23, the police continued their search of the Cleveland area. This time they found a bloody shirt, a pair of female sandals, and a rock with blood spatters on it. The shirt was discovered in bushes about 50 ft from a footpath meandering between the factories. Police believed that it belonged to the fifth or sixth body. They also expanded their search to determine whether more bodies had been dumped in a wider area. Fortunately, this time it wasn’t necessary to summon the mortuary van.
At least, not until October 8.
In the meantime, however, the pathologist had found evidence that at least two of the victims had indeed been raped.
The woman found near the Jupiter station on September 3 was identified by her father on September 26. She was 23-year-old Ntombi Maria Makhasi. She lived in Orlando West, Soweto, and had been studying fashion design at the Elna Design School in Johannesburg. Her teacher described her as friendly and responsible. Apparently, she told her classmates that she would not attend school on September 2, because she was planning to visit her ill mother in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. On September 2, she disappeared. Her father told the detectives that Ntombi made use of taxis and buses for transport. The other identified victim, Hermina Papenfus, was also known to use taxis.
The taxi industry is huge in South Africa, because such a large portion of the population lives in poverty and cannot afford their own motorized transport. Consequently, taxis, which are modified minibuses with numerous rows of seats – and which can accommodate amazing numbers of human beings – are fervently employed. Over the years, there have also been frequent outbreaks of taxi violence among the different factions vying for control of various routes. In recent years, there was a bloody conflict between a taxi faction and the Golden Arrow bus drivers near Cape Town, resulting in a number of violent deaths (mostly on the part of the bus drivers) and people unable to go to work. Many of these taxis are also not entirely roadworthy, and their drivers do not always adhere to established traffic laws and regulations.
Micki Pistorius , South Africa ‘s first psychological profiler, visited the crime scenes on September 28. At the first site, Sgt. Timothy Mngomozulu, the investigating officer, told her that the woman found there on July 16 had a number of messages written on her body. According to the October 31, 1996, article in Beeld, on the inside of her right thigh, the killer had written in black ink: She a beach and I am not fighting with you please. On her left thigh he had written: We must stay here for as long as you don’t understand. The 18-year-old schoolgirl would only be identified on November 10.
Micki Pistorius began working on the profile of the killer. Apart from their race, youth and apparent attention to their appearance – the latter suggested that they were neither prostitutes nor impoverished – other similarities included that all the women had been lured into an industrial area, had probably been raped, and had been strangled with a piece of their clothing – usually a belt, pantyhose or bra. Some were found completely naked; others semi-nude.
The killer was most likely a black man in his middle twenties to early thirties. He was probably charming, well-dressed, and self-employed, with access to money and an expensive car. Based on the women’s appearance, it was unlikely that they would go with someone whose personality, appearance and accessories didn’t portray a man of some means. He was probably married. Investigators predicted that he had a history of fraud and/or theft. He was also probably an arrogant, intelligent man who read the newspapers and was cognizant of other media reports about the murders.
Hermina Papenfus’ body had been dumped in a specific spot. It was discovered on July 31 and removed. On September 3, Ntombi Makhasi’s body was found in the same place. On September 19, a third body was found at the same location. Not only was the killer not concerned about leaving bodies in the same general area, but he was “replenishing” this one spot, as if to say “this place is mine.” When Micki Pistorius realized this, she suggested that the police keep this area under surveillance, but by this time (in October), the killer had read about the task force and increased police involvement, and had consequently abandoned his original graveyard.
The killer obviously had anger and hatred towards women, as evidenced by the nature of the crimes. The messages written on one of the victims, however, indicated that he felt an increased need to express his anger, calling the woman a “beach” (SIC) The profiler deduced that he had been wronged by a woman and that this had been the precipitating factor in the murders (the victim with the messages was believed to have been the first in the series). The messages also suggested that the murderer experienced difficulty expressing himself. He could not tell the woman his feelings while she was alive, so he wrote it on her body after she was dead. Micki Pistorius felt that this difficulty might be due to a speech defect, but this idea continued to bother her, because it contradicted his charming and suave demeanor. Perhaps his difficulty resided on a deeper level, she thought, and he struggled to convey his true feelings.
By the beginning of October, detectives were still feverishly trying to identify six bodies while following up every lead they had. Identikits of the victims were being finalized. The profile was completed based on the available information and shared with the detectives. The killer was reticent.
Until October 8, when a body was found near Geldenhuis train station, which is one stop from the Cleveland station. If these two stations were connected with the Jupiter station – which is on a separate railway line running more or less parallel to the first, until the two eventually converge – Heriotdale falls almost right in the center of that triangle. This woman had been lying in the veld for a number of days. She had been strangled with her pantyhose, clothing had been stuffed into her mouth, and there was some indication she had been raped.
This was a Saturday. By Tuesday, detectives had located two dockets of women who had been found near Geldenhuis station on August 6 and September 3 respectively. The modus operandi was like déjà vu. The August 6 body was found with her jersey pulled over her head, her panties and pantyhose stuffed into her mouth, strangled with her own blouse which was still tied around her neck.
On October 13, the Brixton Murder and Robbery Unit held a press conference. Col. Van Dyk Kruger, the unit commander, gave the following message to the murderer, quoted the next day in Beeld: “We’re on your trail. Sooner or later we will catch you. We know you need help and there are specialists who understand you and who can help. Let us help you before things get worse. Please call before it’s too late.” Col. Dave Bruce, police spokesperson, said that a reward of R200,000 ($32,786) was being offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer. He reiterated the importance of identifying the victims and appealed to the public to report missing persons to the police. Micki Pistorius provided some elements from her profile, stating in the same Beeld article that the killer “feels dead inside. He probably thinks about death all the time. He fantasizes about every murder and tries to commit the perfect murder, because he has a drive to kill, but he doesn’t understand it. To kill is the only way he can release his feelings and his identity.” She ended by saying that he wouldn’t stop killing: “He can’t.”
On October 17, a man identified his daughter from a picture in the newspaper. Her name was Amanda Kebofile Thethe, and her body had been found on August 6. She had already been given a pauper’s burial. Amanda was 26 years old when she left her parents’ house at 9:00 a.m. on August 2. She was to pay an account in Johannesburg, and then go to Soshanguve, north of Pretoria, where she was a teacher.
On October 20, Nomvula Mokonyane, Amanda Thethe’s aunt and a member of the local government, disclosed the ineptness Amanda’s family encountered when they tried to report her disappearance. Initially, a week after they last saw Amanda, they had gone to the police station at John Vorster Plain, Johannesburg, only to be informed that there was “a lack of stationery,” according to the October 21, 1994, edition of Beeld. They were told to go to another station. They went to the station in Krugersdorp, where they lived. A week later, when they inquired about any progress, the docket had been misplaced. Mokonyane did, however, praise the Brixton Unit for their handling of the case since Amanda had been identified.
On this same day, another victim was identified by her parents. She was 25-year-old Malesu Betty Phalahadi. Interestingly, not only had she disappeared on September 2, the same day Ntombi Makhasi was last seen alive, but the two women were both discovered the very next day – Ntombi near the Jupiter train station and Betty near the Geldenhuis station. This wasn’t the only interesting thing related to Betty’s murder, however.
On October 19, a woman phoned Grace Lehlake, Betty’s mother, asking whether she knew where her daughter was. Grace asked the same question of the woman, who replied that Grace should call the police and hung up. Who was this woman, and why did she only phone a month and a half after Betty’s disappearance? What did she know, and perhaps more importantly, how did she know it? Betty was believed to have visited a girlfriend in Mabopane, Pretoria, on the day of her disappearance, and they would supposedly have travelled together by train to Johannesburg on that day. Was this perhaps the woman who called? If so, why not reveal her identity and contact the police directly? Or was it someone who knew the killer?
Questions, but no answers. There was only a police officer who wanted to marry Betty Phalahadi, but had earlier recognized his fiancée’s clothes at the Brixton Murder and Robbery Unit.
Until then, the bodies were all found in a relatively confined area. But detectives were wondering about two women discovered in Pretoria West. The first body was found on August 19 in a patch of open field by a cattle watcher. The same man found the second body on October 7, about 330 yards from the first. These women were also black and neatly dressed. They had been strangled with their stockings and left partially nude, with no possessions which could help with their identification. Some of the Cleveland victims came from Pretoria or the surrounding area, or were traveling by taxi or train in the area when they disappeared.
Between Cleveland and Pretoria lie 49 miles of highway. This strengthened the belief that the killer owned a vehicle.
On October 25 and 26, authorities identified two more victims. Dorah Moleka Mokoena, aged 25, was a cashier at the Danville toll booth near Pretoria. She left home on the morning of September 9 to take a taxi to work, but she never arrived. On September 19, her body was found in Heriotdale. Dikeledi Daphney Papo was 28 and unemployed. Authorities were uncertain about what she had been doing before she disappeared or when she had gone missing. Her body was found on September 21 in Heriotdale.
Detectives learned that a man had phoned Dorah Mokoena’s employer on September 12, three days after her disappearance. This man claimed that Dorah had been in an accident and would not be returning to work. He asked Dorah’s employer to pay her salary into her account. Supposedly she was in a critical condition and needed the money. When the employer asked the man who he was, he remained silent for some time and then gave his name as “Martin.”
Ironically, on Halloween, police revealed that one of the Pretoria West victims would be exhumed to search for evidence linking her to the Cleveland victims.
On November 2, Refilwe Amanda Mokale was identified. She had gone missing on September 5, her body found two days later next to the M2 freeway in Heriotdale. Refilwe was 24 years old, and her identification led to a possible breakthrough.
Refilwe was studying fashion design at IntecCollege in Pretoria. On September 4, the day before her disappearance, eyewitnesses saw her on Church Plain in Pretoria, talking to a man who offered her a job selling cellular phones. Apparently, she made an appointment to meet him the next day. She was never seen alive again. Witnesses described a black man, judged to be between 25 and 30 years of age, who could speak Zulu. Other women, who had also received job offers from the suspect, came forward as well. An identikit was drawn up and released to the media on November 10.
Meanwhile, the two victims discovered in Pretoria West had been identified. 30-year-old Peggy Bodile had an appointment with an unknown man on October 4 at the Paul Kruger statue on Church Plain in Pretoria. Her body was found three days later.
Joyce Thakane Mashabela, aged 32, left home to visit her sister by taxi on August 9. Five days later, on August 14, a man identifying himself as “Moses Sima” phoned Joyce’s employer, claiming he had found Joyce’s identity document while he was walking through a patch of veld en route to work. He left both an address and a phone number, and family members retrieved the booklet the following day. The man repeated his story. If he only found the booklet, how did he know where Joyce worked and what the number was? Joyce’s body was found on August 19.
The body police believed to be the first in the series, found on July 16, was identified on November 10. She was Maria Monene Monama. Maria was only 18 years old and still at school. She left home on the morning of July 14 to go to Pretoria and, although her body was found two days later, her parents wouldn’t know what had happened to their daughter for four months.
Finally, the body of Margaret Ntombeni Ledwaba, 24, which was found on September 7, was identified.
By November 18, detectives had developed a suspect. He was a black man, living in a house in Boksburg, which is east of Johannesburg and about 12 and a half miles from Cleveland. He also owned a computer college – which, not surprisingly, specialized in teaching female students – called the Vision English Girls College, run from some offices he rented in Pretoria, so he was connected to both cities where the bodies had been found. In addition, he drove a Mercedes-Benz, which certainly complied with Micki Pistorius’ statement that the killer would drive an expensive car.
He was experiencing some serious financial difficulties, however. The Mercedes was registered in a black woman’s name, although the suspect was paying the installments. He was R20,000 ($3,279) behind, though. He also owed R50,000 ($8,197) in rent and electricity bills. His four employees at the college hadn’t received their salaries. He had left town two weeks before, supposedly on business overseas.
The suspect was described as suave and a flashy dresser, with many friends who owned taxis. He was married, although he and his wife did not live together, and he was frequently in the company of women. One woman even contacted the police, identifying the suspect as the man who initially offered her a job, but who tried to rape her later.
The investigative team felt confident that they had their man. Now they only had to find him. Although they did not reveal his name to the press, the detectives knew who they were looking for.
His name was David Abraham Selepe.
Toward the end of the month, police expanded their search beyond the borders of South Africa. On December 15, 31-year-old David Selepe (pronounced Sill-LAIR-pair, with silent r’s) was taken into custody in Maputo, port city and capital of neighboring Mozambique. He was driving the Mercedes, which he had apparently been trying to sell. In the trunk, detectives found newspaper clippings of the Cleveland serial murders, as well as footprints suggesting that someone had been locked inside at some point. He was brought back to South Africa, interrogated and housed in the Brixton Murder and Robbery Unit’s lockup.
This was a Thursday. The next day, December 16, was and remains a public holiday. Because of the holiday, Selepe would remain in a cell at the Brixton police station until after the weekend. Consequently, the detectives had easy access to Selepe and no doubt questioned him thoroughly. At some point, he apparently confessed to having killed 15 women in the Cleveland area – four more than the police knew about. He was not questioned about the two bodies found in Pretoria West. In addition, he mentioned the names of two other men who might be helpful in the investigation. Apparently, he waived his right to have legal representation present. However, he also refused to sign a written confession and only acknowledged the murders orally, something the police would come to rue very shortly.
Selepe agreed to take the detectives to the sites where he had left the bodies. On Saturday, December 17, he indicated three places where bodies had been found. He also later took the detectives to the four previously unknown sites. On Sunday, December 18, while Selepe was pointing out the scene where Amanda Thethe’s body had been found on August 6, disaster struck.
Three of the six detectives investigating the murders, Felix Tiedt, Timothy Mngomozulu and Joseph du Toit, accompanied Selepe – in handcuffs and ankle chains – on Sunday. At Geldenhuis station, they had to cross rough terrain to get to one of the scenes. To prevent Selepe from being injured (which might later have been used to accuse the detectives of brutality), his ankle chains were removed. Selepe pointed out the place where Amanda Thethe had been found. He also told them of a plastic bag shoved beneath some dense bushes, where he claimed he had hidden her underwear. Selepe’s handcuffs were removed so that he could show them the bag. When Det. Tiedt bent down to retrieve the bag, he was hit across the back with a four-inch-thick branch, and he fell to the ground. He heard Det. Mngomozulu yell, “Stop! Stop!” as well as something in another language. Then a gunshot rang out, and Selepe slumped to the ground, a gaping wound in his head. He was rushed to Johannesburg Hospital, where he died at 5:00 p.m.
This incident irrevocably tainted an investigation that so far had included 30,000 work hours, 37,500 miles of driving, 5,000 incoming and 6,000 outgoing calls, an investigation which otherwise had gone relatively well. After all, since the Brixton Unit took over the investigation in mid-September, only two months had passed before they had their main suspect identified and one additional month before he was arrested – and that was after detectives tracked him all the way to a neighboring country.
Still, the newspapers all but verbally lynched the police. The editor of Beeld wrote on December 20 that three detectives should have been able to subdue a man armed only with a branch. And if shots had to be fired, why not at the legs? The next day, Beeld covered some of the other newspapers’ responses: The Star speculated about possible ulterior motives; The Citizen worried about the police’s public image; and the Sowetan stated that “an innocent man may have paid for the crimes of a monster who is still alive.”
The fact that the police failed to notify Selepe’s estranged wife of his death, causing her to find out about it from neighbors who read about it in the papers, did not help. Neither did contradicting statements by one of the media officers, Lieutenant-Colonel Eugene Opperman, who first told reporters that Selepe had been handcuffed at the time of the attack, and later corrected his mistake. He was subsequently suspended in an effort to repair some of the police’s damaged image.
Another statement by the police, in the December 20 issue of Beeld, said that Selepe had not admitted “in so many words” that he was the Cleveland strangler, but “said things which strengthened our suspicion,” casting further doubt on a verbal confession that was increasingly being viewed as something which should be written in quotation marks.
Sydney Mufamadi, the Minister of Safety and Security at the time, did his best to try and salvage the deteriorating situation. He held a press conference, discussing some aspects of the investigation and stating that Selepe’s death did not mean the case was now closed. He met with Dullah Omar, the Minister of Justice, as well as Advocate Klaus von Lieres und Wilkau, the Attorney-General of the Witwatersrand, to discuss the investigation into Selepe’s death.
On December 22, Minister Mufamadi spent four hours with 30 relatives of eight of the Cleveland victims in the Manhattan Hotel in Pretoria, assuring them that both Selepe’s death as well as the Cleveland murders will be investigated thoroughly.
Detectives tracked down the two men Selepe had mentioned. One, called Tito, immediately provided hair and blood samples. He was also extensively questioned, but authorities found no connection to the murders. The other man, Mandla, was in prison, where he had been awaiting trial while the murders occurred. He was also questioned and dismissed as an accomplice.
On December 23, police revealed that David Selepe could be tied to at least six of the Cleveland victims. Human blood was found in Selepe’s car, supposedly from one of the victims, but no further details were furnished. Blood believed to be from Selepe was found on one of the victims’ panties. Additional evidence linked Selepe to four more victims, but police did not want to divulge details. It seemed like a rather feeble attempt to save some face.
Amid the turmoil, Selepe’s widow, Linda, stated on the television news that she might sue the police for her husband’s death. Her motive for suing, however, appeared somewhat suspect. In an interview with Beeld, published on December 20, Linda’s mother, Grace Nkosi, said that “David lived in a house in Boksburg. My daughter came to live with me [in KwaThema] to finish school. I haven’t seen him in a long time and I know nothing about him.”
It seems then that, not only had Linda and David Selepe not lived in the same house for more than a year, but they had not had much contact between them. When the inquest into David Selepe’s death began six months later, Linda did not attend. More than a year after that, just before the trial of Moses Sithole began, she was still threatening to sue the government. Whether she actually ever followed through on her threat is unknown.
Despite a number of journalists’, newspaper editors’ and conspiracy theorists’ misgivings about the conduct of the police officers in Selepe’s shooting, most people probably thought his death signaled the end of this dark chapter in Johannesburg’s history. Alas, it was only the prelude. During the ensuing months, things would become much blacker.
On February 7, 1995, Col. Adrian Eager, the investigating officer in David Selepe’s death, delivered the autopsy report – which had somehow been misplaced the previous week – to the Attorney General, thereby completing the docket. The Attorney General would peruse the materials and decide whether someone should be held accountable and tried.
Less than a week later, on February 13, the body of a young black woman was found in a patch of veld near Village Deep, about 6 miles from Cleveland. Her clothes had been pushed up to above her hips, and she had been strangled with her underwear. A chill must have gone through the Brixton Murder and Robbery building when the death became known. Newspapers did not fail to make a connection between this body and the Cleveland victims, although police stated that they suspected a copycat.
During the last weekend of February, four women came forward with accounts of a black man who had approached them separately with job offers during October and November the previous year. They described an attractive man with large eyes and expensive clothes who spoke Sotho. He reportedly was a vegetarian who drank milk. When the women asked him about the Cleveland murders, he disappeared.
Meanwhile, the woman found on February 13 was identified by her brother as 22-year-old Nelsiwe Langa. She had disappeared two weeks before her body was discovered.
On March 6, police revealed that Nelsiwe had not been killed by the same man responsible for the Cleveland murders. Despite the obvious similarities, there were some important differences. What they did not yet realize, however, was that bodies were being found in Atteridgeville, next to Pretoria, with a virtually identical modus operandi to the Cleveland series.
A few days later, the office of the Attorney General stated that Col. Eager’s investigation into the death of David Selepe had been thorough and that no one would be held accountable. The case would be referred to the magistrates’ court in Germiston, to complete the inquest.
In April, when police discovered the fourth body in four months in the veld near the Skurweberg shooting range in Atteridgeville, they revealed to the media that another serial killer might be active. The woman, black and in her twenties, was found semi-nude. Her bra had been used to tie her hands behind her back. Her panties were gone. The previous three bodies were found in similar circumstances.
As the year wore on, the bodies began to pile up. There was at least one body per month, usually more. By June 19, when the inquest into David Selepe’s death began, eight women had been found in Atteridgeville. One victim was found in Rosslyn, about 9 miles northwest of Pretoria. Newspapers raised some questions about Selepe’s involvement in the Cleveland murders, since the modus operandi in that series and the one in Atteridgeville were so similar. Police spokespeople reiterated that they had forensic evidence linking Selepe to at least six of the Cleveland victims.
The mystery surrounding Selepe deepened on June 21, when Col. Adrian Eager testified that there was uncertainty whether “David Selepe” was the suspect’s real name. Apparently, he had been found guilty of fraud on May 2, 1985, when he was caught with an identity document in the name of “David Selepe.” At the time, authorities could not establish who the booklet belonged to, nor what the perpetrator’s real name was. Consequently, he was sentenced as “David Selepe.” The records of the Department of Internal Affairs revealed that Selepe had first obtained a legal identity document in May 1992. Between that time and June 21, 1994, a total of five such booklets had been issued to him.
On June 22, 1995, Magistrate HP Strydom ruled that no one would be held accountable for David Selepe’s death. He found that Sgt. Mngomozulu had acted in self-defense.
After more bodies were discovered, the South African police contacted Robert Ressler, a retired FBI agent. He arrived on September 23. Although he was working with Micki Pistorius on the profile of the Atteridgeville serial killer, the National Commissioner asked him to look into the David Selepe case as well. The two profilers came to a number of conclusions: (1) the evidence indicated that Selepe had been involved in the Cleveland murders in some way; (2) it was likely that the Atteridgeville killer was working with an accomplice; and (3) it was possible that Selepe and the Atteridgeville killer may have known each other and may even have worked together.
When Moses Sithole was apprehended in connection with the Atteridgeville murders during October 1995, an initial police probe failed to uncover any connection between Sithole and Selepe. At the time of this writing, this situation remains unchanged.
When Sithole was eventually brought before the court, the charges included four of the Cleveland murders originally attributed to Selepe. The four were Maria Monama, Amanda Thethe, Joyce Mashabela and Refilwe Mokale. Again the press went wild. The fact that Selepe had been shot while pointing out the scene where Amanda Thethe’s body had been found, a woman whose murder was now attributed to Moses Sithole, did not help. The tragedy of Selepe’s death would continue to haunt the police.
Was David Selepe a serial killer, or merely bad with money? If he was involved in the Cleveland murders, to what extent was he involved? Did he work alone? What did he mean when he named “Tito” and “Mandla” as his accomplices? Did he and Moses Sithole know each other? If so, what exactly was the extent of their relationship?
There are only questions and no answers. Unlike a novel or a movie about a fictional killer, in real life we’ll probably never know for certain.
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Note: Dollar equivalencies are calculated at $1 = R6.10. This doesn’t yield a monetary value that is directly comparable, however.
Du Bruyn, JT (1986). Die Groot Trek. In T Cameron (Ed.), Nuwe geskiedenis van Suid-Afrika in woord en beeld (pp. 127-142). Cape Town, South Africa: Human & Rousseau.
Pistorius, M (2000). Catch me a killer. Sandton, South Africa: Penguin Books.
Pistorius, M (2002). Strangers on the street: serial homicide in South Africa. Sandton, South Africa: Penguin Books.
Ressler, RK & Shachtman, T (1998). I have lived in the monster. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Willis, R (1993). Great themes of myth. In R Willis (Ed.), World mythology: the illustrated guide (pp. 17-34). London: Duncan Baird Publishers.
To recount the story of David Selepe, I have relied on the following sources:
The electronic archives of http://152.111.1.251/argief/berigte/beeld Beeld and Independent http://www.iol.co.za On-Line. The latter also contains articles from the following newspapers: Cape Times and Saturday Star.
Books by Dr. Micki Pistorius, Robert Ressler and Tom Shachtman.