Tangeni Amupadhi
Mpumalanga police have failed to trace a former Delmas mental patient who they say might help in the investigation of the beheading murders of at least four people.
The police said Johannes Mohale- Monareng (alias Mohlala), who cut off a child’s head and tried selling it in 1990, was last seen at his workplace a few months ago.
Although police have ruled him out as a suspect in the four murders, they still want to talk to Mohale-Monareng because of the similarity between his crime and the latest murders.
Three corpses with heads craftily severed were found in a river and a dry stream in Delmas three weeks ago. Police representative Zelda Krause said the heads were cut off with a knife before being tossed in shallow water.
One of the bodies – that of a woman – was punctured with several stab wounds and her arms were broken. The other two were not mutilated.
None of the three bodies have been identified and only two heads could be matched with the torsos of two men. The head of a child and the woman’s body remain unmatched.
So far police have no clue who is responsible for the crime. However, the police’s expert in serial killings, Dr Micki Pistorius, this week put down the motive of the murders to muti killings.
Pistorius effectively ruled out compulsive killing. “I don’t have a shred of evidence pointing to a serial killer,” she said. “There is probably more than one person involved in this case. It is not the work of a mentally disturbed person.”
Pistorius says that the only similarity between Mohale-Monareng’s crime and these more recent killings was that the heads of the victims had been severed from their bodies.
In other respects, she said, the modi operandi were different. For example, there were some parts missing from the two heads, while Mohale-Monareng had carried off the entire head of his victim.
He was charged eight years ago with the murder of his victim, a six-year- old girl, after he tried to sell her head to a businessman for R1 000. During the trial, he was found to be insane and was committed to Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital for treatment.
Contrary to media reports that the man had escaped from hospital, Leandre Gauche, the medical superintendent at Weskoppies, said Mohale-Monareng was released on “supervisory leave” four years ago and has since been treated as an outpatient at the Phola clinic in Ogies.
Gauche said this week they were satisfied with Mohale-Monareng’s progress and that no problems have been reported by the clinic since 1994. Mohale-Monareng last reported to the clinic five months ago. Krause says he has gone for treatment as scheduled. He had been working at a mining company near Witbank.
Captain Riaan Jacobs, who is heading the investigation, has said although police are waiting for the forensic report, Mohale-Monareng is not regarded a suspect. “We don’t think he is involved at all,” Jacobs said.
The Phola clinic could not be reached for comment due to faulty telephone lines in the area.
Police believe the murder victims could have been immigrants from Zimbabwe or Mozambique because no one in the Delmas area has been reported missing. They are offering a reward of R250 000 for information about the murders.