A task team will be established to investigate a series of recent rapes and killings similar to the work of a serial killer who had operated in and around Pietermaritzburg in the 1990s, police said on Wednesday.
Police spokesperson Superintendent Henry Budhram said: ”The task team has been put in place considering the similarities in the recent cases reported to the police. The investigation will consider all the evidence thus far and the modus operandi with a view to establish whether these killings were the work of a serial killer.
”The task team will also investigate previous cases where allegations of serial killings were alleged,” he said.
The team will comprise six experienced detectives.
On Monday, the Witness newspaper reported that a serial killer was on the loose in the same area seven years after police had closed the case.
The killer, known as the ”Sleepy Hollow” murderer, was linked to the deaths of at least 13 women — thought to be sex workers — in the late 1990s who were strangled with their panties.
The possibility that the Sleepy Hollow killer might be responsible for at least three more recent murders — and suspected rapes — of unidentified women in the vicinity of the N3 highway near Pietermaritzburg between February and October last year could not be discounted, although there were some differences between the latest crime scenes and those of the 1990s.
The Witness said it was aware of allegations that more bodies said to bear the trademarks of the killer had also been discovered near Bloemfontein and Port Elizabeth.
The newspaper confirmed that a top psychologist attached to the South African Police Service’s investigative psychology unit in Pretoria had visited Pietermaritzburg in November to assess if a serial murderer was at work. — Sapa