Social conditions in South Africa are ripe for an increase in serial killings, reports Justin Pearce
Serial killing is one of South Africa’s fastest growing hobbies. Police psychologist Micki Pistorius, who has compiled a psychological profile of the Atteridgeville strangler, says half of known serial killings in South Africa have occurred in the past five years and an average of two new serial killers are emerging each year.
There was a boom in serial killings in Western countries in the 1970s and 1980s — notably in the United States, where at least 100 serial murderers are believed to operate in any given year.
The increase in South Africa is more recent, and the past two years have seen serial killers in the news as never before. Last year saw the end of the ”Station Strangler” murders, which saw 22 boys murdered in Cape Town in two separate sprees. Police investigated charges in connection with several of the murders against schoolteacher Norman Simons, but he was eventually convicted of only one of
The ”Cleveland Killer” claimed 11 victims in Johannesburg during 1994. Murder suspect David Selepe was shot dead by police during investigations, and there is still no certainty as to the identity of the real killer. There has been speculation that the Cleveland Killer has re-emerged as the Atteridgeville Strangler, who has so far murdered at least 14 women in Pretoria and who is probably still at large.
Pistorius is the first South African researcher to look at serial killing in depth. Much of the work she has done has involved closely studying decades’ worth of murders and determining whether they fit the pattern of serial killing. In the past, investigators had little regard for the phenomenon and, although Pistorius has discovered serial murders dating back to 1936, few of these murders were identified as such when they were committed.
Pistorius admits that the small number of serial killings recorded in the past may have something to do with the lack of identification, but she is confident that there has been a real increase as well.
Most studies of criminal behaviour in South Africa have focused on phenomena such as gangsterism, which can more readily be explained in terms of social forces. Pistorius, like most serial killer experts, is adamant that serial killing is best explained in terms of individual psychology rather than as the direct consequence of social forces. She points out that while many serial killers come from troubled homes, ”if we say that violence or a poor home background breeds serial killers, then why are there not more of them?”
However, the fact that serial killings are more common in certain societies than in others suggests that social forces must have some influence on the shaping of a serial killer.
Pistorius believes that although the serial killer is the product of an abnormal psychological development, certain social trends have an influence on this
She names the individualistic ethos of Western culture as being one of the forces that shapes a serial killer. The prevalence of serial killings in the US could be interpreted as the doctrine of libertarianism taken to its pathological, but logical,
Perhaps more relevant for South Africa, a generally high level of violence also makes serial killings more likely, with the killer absorbing the idea that violence is an acceptable way to solve problems.
What is more, serial murders occur at times of social change and crisis. American serial killings soared just at the time when the post-World War II economic boom ended, and the Vietnam war dealt the biggest ever blow to American confidence. Canadian sociologist Elliott Leyton sees serial killing as a manifestation of frustrated aspirations, occurring not in the most oppressed social strata (such as South African townships under apartheid), but in those areas where promises of a better life have not been fulfilled, a scenario which neatly matches post-1990 South
Added to this are the purely practical factors like the lack of co-ordination between state police forces in the US, and the under-resourced police force in South Africa, which enable serial murderers to roam for longer than would be possible with tighter policing.
Not every multiple murder is a serial killing. Two well-known South African multiple murderers — Daisy de Melker and Barend Strydom — are not considered to be serial killers, since their murders were motivated: De Melker’s by the desire to benefit from her husbands’ insurance policies, Strydom’s by a political agenda. Serial killings bring no obvious benefit for the killer.
Victims of a single serial killer are usually similar in terms of gender, race, age and social class. Once a killer has fixed his sights on a particular kind of victim, he will invariably find victims who fit the bill regardless of what obstacles may be put in his way. The ”station strangler” killing spree in Mitchells Plain early in 1994 provoked a fanatical reaction as parents tried to protect their sons, yet this did nothing to slow down the murder rate.
For the killer, the murder is usually an attempt to fulfil a fantasy which involves both the display of power and sexual gratification. Because the murder never exactly matches the fantasy, the killer strikes again and again in a despairing quest to get it right. The sight of the victim’s body is an important part of the fantasy. A classic case is that of the British killer Dennis Nielson, who was traumatised as a child by the sight of the drowned body of his grandfather, with whom he had had a close relationship. In adolescence, Nielson would paint his body to look like a corpse and lie in front of a mirror — later, this fantasy related to his grandfather’s death was translated into a series of murders.
Pistorius believes that the importance of vision in murder fantasies is one of the reasons why serial killers are, almost without exception, male. Vision, she says, is a crucial sexual stimulus for men and less so for women.
Realising the need to pay special attention to serial killers, the South African Police Services’ National Priority Crimes Unit now has a team of 30 detectives trained in the psycho-dynamics of the serial killer.
The psychological profile of the Atteridgeville killer which Pistorius has compiled is intended to aid the police in narrowing down the number of suspects in the case. The police have so far refrained from releasing details of the profile, apparently to dampen the kind of public speculation and vigilantism which brought near chaos to Mitchells Plain after the release of the ”Station Strangler” identikits.
That serial killing is a crime for our times is reflected as much by public fascination as by the prevalence of the crime itself — as numerous movie producers have happily discovered.