Ekurhuleni police confirm an eighth body as families wait for names

Eight women have been found dead across Ekurhuleni in two months, and police say they still do not know who some of them are.

The eighth body was found in Olifantsfontein on 14 September, acting National Police Commissioner Puleng Dimpane told a media briefing on Tuesday night. A seventh body, recovered from a river in Clayville near the Mall of Thembisa on 7 September, was added to the same investigation earlier that day.

Dimpane said some of the dead remain unidentified, and she asked residents in Kempton Park, Clayville, KwaThema and the surrounding areas to come forward if they know of a family member who is missing.

“The sooner we identify these victims, the quicker it will assist us to follow specific leads and to crack these particular cases,” she said.

What the two months show

The recoveries run back to the middle of July.

On 15 July a 37-year-old woman was found in Kempton Park. A suspect was arrested two days later.

Two more bodies were found in Kempton Park during August. On 10 September a fourth was found in the same area, naked and in an advanced state of decomposition.

On 12 September, Elizabeth Moselakgomo, 38, left her eight-year-old daughter at home to go for a jog and did not return. Police said her body was found behind a hotel.

On 14 September a woman’s body was found beside a road in KwaThema, Springs. The Clayville recovery was confirmed on the same day the Olifantsfontein body was found.

What police have not said

Police have not said the deaths are the work of one person. Dimpane has not linked the cases publicly, and no charge sheet has been put before the public connecting them.

The one arrest so far followed the first recovery in Kempton Park in July. The National Prosecuting Authority has not announced charges in any of the later cases.

That absence is itself information. Until the dead are named, investigators cannot match a body to a missing-person report, and a missing-person report is what turns an unidentified recovery into a lead.

The work the state is doing

The Gauteng Forensic Pathology Service has been moving the bodies and holding them for examination. The police have run the recoveries through the provincial murder and sexual offences units, and the briefing on Tuesday night was called to put the sequence of finds on the record.

Dimpane’s request to residents is the operational centre of the case. A family that reports a missing woman gives investigators a name, a last known location and a date. Those three things are what allow a pathologist’s finding to be tied to a specific investigation.

What this costs the people who live here

The women who died lived in Kempton Park, in Clayville, in KwaThema. They used the same roads, the same taxis and the same shopping centres as everyone else in those towns.

For the families still waiting, the cost is not abstract. A body that cannot be named cannot be released for burial. A mother who has not been told where her daughter is cannot begin to grieve her.

Moselakgomo’s daughter, eight years old, is now part of a household that has to be told what happened to her mother.

How to help

Residents who know of a missing family member in Kempton Park, Clayville, KwaThema, Olifantsfontein or Thembisa should take the report to their nearest police station and ask that it be flagged to the Ekurhuleni investigation. A missing-person case number is what allows the police to compare a report against the bodies they are holding.

Anyone with information on any of the recoveries can call the SAPS Crime Stop line on 08600 10111 or use the MySAPS app. A report can be made anonymously.

Eight women in two months is not a statistic. It is eight families in Ekurhuleni who are still waiting to be told what happened.

Dimpane said the identification of the remaining victims is the step that will move the investigation forward. The police have not given a date for the next briefing.

Source: eNCA, Discovery of eighth body added to investigations into Ekurhuleni murders