Pretoria - “You are a violent man and a danger to society. You have to be removed from society,” a judge told Andries Makgae, a serial rapist and killer from Onderstepoort, north of Pretoria, before sentencing him to three terms of life behind bars.
The father of two preyed mostly on elderly women, whom he strangled with their underwear after raping them. He left their bodies in the veld to decay. One of his victims was devoured by wild animals and only her skull remained.
Her distraught husband earlier told the high court in Pretoria how he searched for his wife for weeks. He looked everywhere, until he came upon her gruesome remains.
One cannot imagine his agony when he made the gruesome discovery, Judge Vivian Tlhapi said.
“”You did not want your victims to survive,” she said to Makgae.
The 55-year-old man showed no emotion as he received his three life sentences, as well as a further 20 years imprisonment.
He was earlier convicted of nine charges, including three of murder and four of rape. He followed the same modus operandi while he embarked on an 18-month reign of terror - starting in January 2012 - in the Onderstepoort area where he lived.
These crimes were committed barely six months after his parole period lapsed following 10 years in jail for a string of previous crimes. The court heard his crime career in fact started in the 1980s with a spate of housebreakings.
The judge said it was clear that Makgae did not learn from his mistakes. In fact, he became even more violent once he was released from jail and started killing people.
The flamboyant and well dressed man pleaded guilty to most of the murder charges, while he denied the bulk of the rape charges.
He claimed that a woman infected him with the HIV-Aids virus and he then transferred it to his wife. He subsequently developed a hatred towards women.
But the judge said he took revenge on innocent women and first raped them, before he brutally strangled them. He said his HIV-infection was the reason why he killed Maria Pilore, 60. He, however, denied that he raped her and claimed that they had a relationship. She was last seen on January 1, 2012, visiting a tavern on a plot in Onderstepoort. Her partly decomposed body was discovered 17 days later in dense bushes near Bon Accord Dam.
A few weeks later, 69-year-old Juliet Mokgatla was murdered. She was sent by her husband to a nearby shop on February 4.
She never returned home and her body was also discovered a few days later. She was also raped before being killed.
Praise Mpatsi, 29, suffered the same fate. Her husband testified that he left for work on January 3, 2013, leaving her at home. When he returned she was missing. Her body was discovered nearly three weeks later in dense bush.
While the police were still searching for the missing Mpatsi, Makgae pounced on his last victim before he was caught. This was about a week after he had killed Mpatsi.
The court remarked that if not for the brave last victim, who managed to alert the police after she was twice raped, Makgae would have continued with his rape and killing.