James Hall
Nothing much disturbs the placid facade of Swaziland, but the murderous escapades of David Mahlanga (45) have shaken assumptions about the kingdom.
Mahlanga, who may be responsible for at least 34 deaths, has triggered anxiety because of what his crimes represent a realisation that Swazis can no longer presume they are safe.
“Women roam the highways late at night with babies strapped to their backs, searching for work and no money for bus fare, so with such an availability of victims these killings were just waiting for the right psychopath to come along,” says a source with the Royal Swaziland Police Force, which has taken some heat for being unaware of the murders that went on for at least two years.
In defence of the police, only two victims of the serial killer, a wife and her child, were ever reported missing by a relative. Their bodies were recovered within a month. Other victims had been reduced to skeletal condition when they were stumbled upon by a herd boy, who thought he had discovered an impala poacher’s forgotten cache.
A combined police and army operation unearthed from shallow graves or coverings of pine needles 32 additional victims all decapitated women, many showing signs of having been raped, or small children whom police suspect were travelling with their mothers through the timber forests of the Sappi/Usuthu company in Malkerns, 30km from Mbabane, where Mahlanga lived.
Reportedly bitter at having been jailed for 20 years for rape, wrongly in his opinion, Mahlanga sought his revenge by becoming a serial seducer-cum-killer, police sources say.
DNA and other forensic tests to place him at the scene of the crimes may tell whether he is telling the truth in his voluntary confession, but so far Mahlanga has cooperated with investigators by providing a history of the murders.
If he is a mass murderer, he joins the kingdom’s pioneer in the field, Bongani Vilakati, who eluded police for eight months after six bodies were found buried on his farm, also in the Malkerns area, last July.
Police originally suspected Vilakati as the killer of the dozens of bodies discovered immediately following his death on March 29, when he was gunned down by police after a chase through a maize field.
But the unease that has befallen Swaziland is greater than the fear of one mass murderer. With more corpses uncovered every week, Vilakati’s body count of six and Mahlanga’s alleged count of 32 victims seem likely to rise.
“What is most troubling for Swazis is that this is an unknown nightmare. There have been no serial killings before. People knew their relatives’ whereabouts, and the movements of strangers were closely followed and reported to the chief,” says Dr Thandi Malepe, director of the National Psychiatric Centre.
In the wake of the killings, prostitutes who once used hitchhiking as a pretext to meet clients have disappeared from roadsides.
Police Commissioner Edgar Hillary has condemned women who hitchhike at night and suggested they are inviting their own deaths.
“Women have to hitchhike if there is no other transportation,” counters Manzini resident Thabile Shongwe. “And they have to take their babies because the days are over when everyone lived together and the gogo took care of the little ones.”
The extended family homestead from which people never roamed is indeed past. The mass murder discoveries have highlighted the need for better communication between itinerant family members and for a modern transportation system that does not put women and children at the mercy of the night.