Police widen Ekurhuleni murders probe to eight women as Ramaphosa orders priority

Eight women have been found dead across Ekurhuleni since the middle of July, and the South African Police Service has widened its investigation to all of them after a body was discovered in Kwa-Thema on Tuesday.

The most recent cases share features that police say are concerning enough to warn women in the area. Several of the women were found naked or partly clothed, and some showed signs of sexual violence.

Acting Police Minister Firoz Cachalia met police leadership to discuss the cases. He told reporters afterwards that the deaths of these young women must not be in vain, and that the challenge was ahead of the service.

President Cyril Ramaphosa ordered police to prioritise the investigation, saying the deaths were causing fear and uncertainty, and that no stone would be left unturned.

What the police have said

SAPS has not confirmed that the deaths are the work of a serial killer. Spokesperson Athlenda Mathe said the similarities between the cases were sufficiently concerning for the police to issue a public warning and intensify the investigation while that question remains open.

Police are still working to establish whether they are dealing with one perpetrator or a group of men, Mathe said.

The public warning asks women to exercise caution when jogging or doing similar activities in the area. It is the kind of advisory SAPS issues when it believes the risk to a particular group in a particular place has risen, and it is a request for the public’s eyes, not a statement that the cases are solved.

What is known about the victims

The bodies have been found at several locations across the Ekurhuleni metro, east of Johannesburg, which includes Tembisa and Kwa-Thema.

A 37-year-old woman was the first. She was found naked and bound with cable ties on 15 July, and a suspect was arrested two days later.

A 32-year-old woman was found partly clothed on 24 August. A woman’s body found in a river near Tembisa on 7 September has now been added to the wider investigation.

One of the victims, aged 38, left her eight-year-old daughter at home to go jogging and did not return. Her partly clothed body was found behind a hotel on 12 September.

Another woman’s body was discovered in Kwa-Thema on Tuesday.

The context a reader here already carries

The figures on violence against women in this country are not new to South Africans. UN Women ranks South Africa among the countries with the highest rates of violence against women and children, and the United Nations puts the lifetime risk of physical or sexual violence for a South African woman at around one in three.

That is why the police warning matters more here than a line in a foreign bulletin. It lands in a country where women already plan their routes, their runs and their walks home around risk, and where a warning from SAPS confirms what many of them have been saying.

Ekurhuleni is one of the country’s largest metros, running from Germiston and Boksburg through Tembisa to Kwa-Thema and Tsakane. It is dense, it is spread out, and it is served by a police service that has to cover a very large population with limited resources. Cases that cross its precinct boundaries take time to join up, which is why the decision to fold the earlier cases into one investigation is significant.

What happens next

The investigation is now a single, prioritised case under national attention, with the acting minister and the president both on the record. Police have asked anyone with information to come forward.

Municipal elections follow in November, and violent crime is already one of the issues voters raise most. The test for SAPS will be whether the investigation produces arrests and prosecutions, and whether the public warning is followed by a visible police presence in the areas where the women were found.

As Deutsche Welle reported on 15 September, the discovery of the eighth body prompted the widening of the investigation. This account is The Enquirer’s own.

Source: Deutsche Welle, South Africa now probing deaths of 8 women near Johannesburg.