The shooting and killing of former Bafana Bafana captain and goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa may have qualified for high-profile status, not only because he was a celebrity but because he was also accorded a provincial state funeral – yet the police have been unable to find his killer.
Meyiwa’s murder remains unsolved although it was alleged there were witnesses during the shooting at his girlfriend Kelly Khumalo’s family home.
Soon after the murder, police compiled and circulated an identikit of the suspect.
They then made a wrongful arrest. But months later no one has been arrested and the case remains unresolved.
Meyiwa is not the only South African whose family has yet to see justice and find closure.
There are probably thousands such cases, but police do not publish statistics of unresolved murders in the annual reports, so accurate figures are not available.
However, Brigadier Vish Naidoo says bereaved families should know that the police never close unresolved cases – especially murder cases.
A case may stall because of a lack of leads or evidence that may lead to a conviction, but it doesn’t matter how many years it takes, if a lead is ever found, a case will be investigated and the matter taken for prosecution if there is enough evidence.
Head of Crime Line and LeadSA Yusuf Abramjee says families should constantly speak to investigating officers or station commanders and demand answers.
“If police provide bad service, then always report and e-mail to [email protected] or even Ipid (the Independent Police Investigative Directorate),” he says.
Abramjee says tens of thousands of cases are unresolved.
“We are constantly approached by family members and friends crying out for help. The trauma continues to haunt the relatives. It’s painful. Living with the anxiety is stressful.”
Below is a list of some cases that shocked South Africa but remain unsolved:
n Soweto socialite and drug dealer Rocks Dlamini, who vanished without a trace on the evening of April 6, 1995, after two “bodyguards” allegedly picked him up and took him to the man he said owed him R1.5 million. The husband of Siwe Meela, Chris Meela, who allegedly knew who was behind Dlamini’s disappearance, also ended up dead in the fire escape of the Johannesburg Hospital, after being admitted with respiratory problems.
n Siblings Lindiwe (15) and Nelisiwe (12) Mbhele were found dead, strangled with their church robe, 12 days after they went missing on June 1, 2005. The sisters were last seen on their way to church at Soweto’s Nancefield Hostel. Their charred bodies were found in the veld in Pimville, not far from their home. Three men were arrested on charges of rape, murder and kidnapping. But 17 months later – on October 30, 2006 – the case was thrown out of court because there was no evidence linking them to the case.
- Hazel Crane was a prominent socialite and businesswoman who was assassinated on November 10, 2003 near her home in the plush northern Johannesburg suburb of Abbotsford. Crane was shot dead, shot in the head, leg, chest and arm in her car, while travelling to the Johannesburg High Court to attend the trial of alleged Israeli Mafia member Lior Saat, accused of murdering Crane’s estranged husband near Sunninghill, Gauteng, in 1999.
It later emerged that Crane had been expected to testify in the murder case against Saat and a source close to Crane said that she knew too much, being able to identify and implicate a number of figures in the Saat murder case.
- Families of three female laundry workers who were killed and their bodies stashed in linen bins at Protea Dry Cleaners in Three Rivers, on the Vaal, are still seeking answers nine years later.
The triple killing made headlines in January 2006, after the bodies of 28-year-old Jocelyn Lesito, 30-year-old Victoria Ndweni and Constance Moeletsi were found by colleagues at the family-owned laundry.
The case was dismissed that same year after the Vereeniging Magistrate’s Court ruled that there was a lack of evidence against the accused, the owner of Protea Dry Cleaners, Charl Colyn, and four others.
- In strange twist, sometime after the case was dismissed, key role players died. In December 2006 investigating officer, Inspector Sello Molapisi, who claimed that he had a water-tight case, was shot dead while on a private visit in Kempton Park on Gauteng’s East Rand.
Early the following year one of the gardeners Samuel Mzizi, who confessed to Molapisi that he was ordered by the Colyns to clean the blood off the floor after the murders, also died.
Sunday Independent