Four days before the suspect dubbed the “Facebook rapist” was arrested, he posted a message on the social network denying he had hurt or killed any models, but admitted he had stolen from them.
The man, who goes by the name Thomas Bester, one of at least 13 alleged aliases, was arrested in Alberton, Gauteng, on Wednesday moments after allegedly kidnapping a woman.
But police only realised he may be the “Facebook rapist” two days later when he called an officer working on the case to say he was in custody.
Bester was wanted in connection with a string of crimes including the rapes of two women in Durban in August and the murder of a Pretoria model in Milnerton last month.
Fours days before his arrest, Bester, on a Facebook account under one of his aliases, Kelly Young, posted this message: “THE STORY RUINING UP AND DOWN IN SA BUT POINT ONE AND I HAVE ONE FB ACC ALL THE ACC THAT YOU RUN YOUR STORY ON IS NOT MY ! ,I HAVE BE GET LAPTOP AND THINGS FORM MODELS BUT HAVE NOT KILL OR RAP IN MY DOG LIFE SO SORRY FOR THE BAD ONE IS DONE” (sic).
Police on Monday confirmed the account was being run by Bester and interpreted it as Bester saying he had stolen from models, but had not raped or murdered any.
Another Facebook account, under the name Tom Bester also confirmed to be run by Bester, had an image of Jesus as a profile picture.
The language Bester used on each account differed drastically. Previously Anton Booysen, KwaZulu-Natal head of the Psychologically Motivated Crimes Unit, said Bester was suspected of being a sociopath with schizophrenic tendencies.
On Monday Lieutenant-Colonel Will Lombard of the Durban police said psychiatrists would assess Bester for psychological problems. He said Bester, who was transported from Alberton to Durban, was expected to appear in a Durban court either on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Haden Searles, the Durban North-Umhlanga Community Police Forum chairman, detailed how police, detectives, the Hawks and private investigators around the country had tried to track Bester, who had accounts on Facebook and MXit. Searles said initially Bester was a suspect in a string of petty crimes in Cape Town, Durban and Gauteng.
When officers realised the same person could be behind the crimes, they had to link the incidents and look at the perpetrator’s names.
“The aliases proved a problem initially,” he said. “I sat with (Lombard) and went through literally hundreds of names and cases trying to figure out which ones were Bester,” he said.
Once Bester’s various aliases had been identified, officers started targeting him on social media.
Searles said police officers had set up fake Facebook accounts, using young women as profile pictures, to try and lure him to a meeting point where he could be arrested.
This had nearly worked, but Searles said the story broke in the media, resulting in Bester cancelling meetings.
He said officers had tried to trace Bester through his cellphone, but this had proved to be very difficult as he had used about 100 SIM cards.
“The moment the first rape occurred (on August 19) to last Friday, we literally chased his shadow.
“At stages we were literally missing him by minutes,” he said.
Searles said the bulk of cases against Bester were from KwaZulu-Natal.
“But the cases from all provinces will likely be combined to make for one super trial,” he said. - Cape Times