Pretoria - Sporting an imitation snakeskin leather jacket and colourful trousers, Johnny Mapadimeng, in a loud and clear voice, yesterday admitted to raping three women, sometimes with his friend.
Mapadimeng, 34, pleaded guilty to 13 charges in the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria. These included the abduction of his victims, as well as charges relating to the Firearms Act, as he threatened all of them with a toy gun.
He also pleaded guilty to robbery charges. He threatened them with the “gun” to hand over their cellphones before he raped them.
Mapadimeng’s accomplice was never arrested, but he was charged for the crimes that occurred between 2009 and 2011.
His victims could never identify him and he was thus still roaming the streets until he was recently arrested for an unrelated incident.
The police were able to link him to the rapes via his DNA evidence because he had never used a condom.
His victims saw their rapist again in court yesterday. The terrified victims were spared from taking the stand and testifying about their ordeals because he pleaded guilty.
Judge Hennie de Vos convicted Mapadimeng on all 13 charges.
In his plea explanation, Mapadimeng said he had known that what he was doing was wrong. He realised that if convicted he could go to jail for life.
He said that on December 7, 2009, he saw a man and a woman walking in front of him along a road in Refilwe, Cullinan.
He walked faster and passed them. He then turned around and pointed a toy gun at them. He asked for their cellphones and the woman handed hers to him.
He then forced the two in the direction of a nearby dumping site.
“Along the way, I found some rope and tied the man’s hands and legs. I made him lie on his stomach. I took the woman a short distance from there and took off her clothes. I forced her to the ground and raped her without a condom. When I was done, I left them there and proceeded on my way,” he told the court.
A few months later, in April 2009 in the district of Elandskraal in Limpopo, he and a friend came across two women who were walking along a road in the early evening. The toy gun was pointed at them and they were told if they screamed, they would be shot. They dragged the women to nearby bushes. After robbing them of their cellphones, Mapadimeng raped one of them.
His accomplice wanted to rape the other woman but when she told him she was pregnant, he left her alone.
Nearly two years later, he and his friend were in the vicinity of Esselen Park in Kempton Park, when they saw two women walking in the early evening.
Armed once again with a toy gun, he threatened the women and took their cellphones. “We tied the two women up with their shoelaces and I raped one, while my accomplice raped the other,” he told Judge de Vos.
The trial continues.
Pretoria News