Pretoria - Gauteng police have put together a crack team of investigators to hunt down a possible serial killer who has been targeting young girls. Cases go back nine years.
National police commissioner General Riah Phiyega on Sunday announced that an experienced team of detectives had been set up to find the man thought responsible for the death of possibly 14 young girls in and around Pretoria, with a focus on the Sunnyside, Villieria and Mamelodi areas.
This follows the discovery of the body of a 16-year-old girl last month in a stretch of veld on Stormvoël Road in East Lynne, behind the Tshwane Bus Depo.
The girl was found naked and charred from the waist down.
This brought to four the number of bodies found in the same area in three months.
Members from the Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Unit; Crime Intelligence, Forensic Services; DNA analysts and a psychological profiler form part of the highly acclaimed team who will lead the investigation.
Phiyega said the crack team had been responsible for bringing to book the alleged Gauteng serial rapist Sifiso Makhubo - who took his own life on the day he was due to stand trial on more than 30 rapes counts - as well as the “Graveyard Rapist”, Zamuxolo Kaywood, 31, who was in June sentenced to life imprisonment by the Northern Cape High Court for raping two women.
“The appointment of this high-level team follows findings by detectives and experts from the SAPS forensic science laboratory that there were several murders with a similar method of operation (modus operandi),” police said.
At least 14 murder dockets with the same modus operandi had been identified, they said.
“Analysis of nine of these dockets has already been finalised. Thus far we have detected the DNA of one man in four of these cases.
“The cases include the murder of a young girl in April 2004 in the Sunnyside area. The victims were young females and their attacker killed them using the same method in all four of these cases,” Phiyega said.
The police commissioner said she was confident that the elite team would bring the perpetrator to book.
She called on anyone with information to contact police or Crime Stop on 086 00 10111.
Pretoria News