South African police said on Wednesday they believed a serial killer was responsible for the deaths of eight women whose bodies were found dumped in sugar-cane fields on the KwaZulu-Natal.
A police spokesperson for the Umzinto area said that while a forensics expert had not yet made his findings public, the most recent discovery of three bodies suggested a serial killer was at work.
”We can’t say for sure it is [a serial killer], but we suspected it when the third body was found,” Superintendent Zandra Hechter said.
She said that evidence against a man who had been arrested with four others, two of whom were later released due to lack of evidence, was quite strong.
The first two bodies were discovered mid-September by cane workers, prompting police to launch a larger search with sniffer dogs, which yielded the other bodies, the last three of which were discovered last week.
”All the victims are female between 18 and 25. It looks like all of them were looking for jobs as well,” Hechter said, adding only one woman had been officially identified while the others were awaiting DNA results.
The murders took place in the Shayamoya area of Umzinto on the South Coast, which is a residential area bordering sugar-cane fields.
The suspects were arrested at a house where items belonging to the victims were recovered. Two men and a woman remain in custody, having appeared in court last week, and were due in court again on October 10 for a bail application.
Hechter said the last three women were ”definitely” killed before the arrests as ”they are also badly decomposed”.
Meanwhile, the South African government on Wednesday raised concerns about reports of other missing women in the area, after police set up a hotline for information about the serial killer.
”There are families that are still reporting missing female relatives. Possibilities are that they were killed,” the Presidency said in a statement.
”The community is living in fear because they don’t know who the next victim will be.”
South Africa is battling a heavy crime burden with recent statistics showing about 50 murders are committed every day. — AFP
