South African Serial Killers | Interview with Romano Dolbey - Part 2
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Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast, the podcast dedicated to serial killers, who they were, what they did, and how. Episode 173. I am your Norwegian host, Samas Roseland Weyborg Thors.

In tonight's episode, I continue my fascinating conversation with Mr. Romano Dolby regarding the phenomenon of South African serial killers. We delve further into how it appears to be a cluster of serial murders happening in the city of Pretoria. The murder cases are, as you will hear, often unsolved and apparently ongoing. Enjoy.

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And of course, if you wish to donate $15 a month, that's only $7.50 per episode, you are more than welcome to join the ranks of the TSK Producers Club too. So don't miss out and join now. So, Mr. Dolby, it is a pleasure to have you on the show once again. You are in Dubai, sunny, sunny, very warm Dubai.

I am sitting here in my office in Norway and we are again going to chat about the lovely topic of serial killers in South Africa. Last episode ended with us discussing the paedophile Hart van Rooyen who murdered six girls, possibly more, and he committed suicide before he could be brought to justice.

And the list that my good friend, Mr. Dolby, has compiled, as I said, has 27 cases on it. So my goal here this evening is for us to simply go through the list and have a light-footed chat, as we like to say in Norway, where we talk about the phenomenon of serial murder

in South Africa and especially Pretoria. It's quite unique. I don't think I've ever come across a serial killer phenomenon, trend, ongoing case that is concentrated so many different serial killer cases in one area. I mean, we have so many unknown, unknown serial killers just in Pretoria.

So we touched upon it in the last episode, but Mr. Dolby, have you done any reflections regarding why Pretoria is so exposed to serial killers? Why are there so many cases?

Hey Thomas, thank you for having me again. It's always a pleasure speaking with you and hopefully I didn't annoy you too much with more documented cases or anything like that. Having a look at the numbers and the different serial killers that have operated in the area, I'm not sure why. I do know that I do have a theory, a running theory about

some reason pertaining to why it may be. But we'll get into that as we go along with the cases. And you'll see there's a little bit of a pattern forming in terms of murder separanda as well as the victimology. Again, just need to reiterate, I'm not a criminologist or, you know, I haven't studied

I didn't do criminal law for 20 years and I was fighting as we see on television. So it's just a bit of a pattern that I've seen forming. But you'll see that as we go along with these cases, especially as the unknown start, we fall deep into the first case. And the first case, the first unknown case is actually the one that got me started. It started the side obsession, you know? I see.

Well, before we go on to case number nine, also known as unknown, let's have a brief talk about number eight. Samuel Sidino. I mean, my pronunciation of these South African names is terrible. Samuel Sidino? Sidino? How do you say it?

I think you're right. It's Sedano. I don't know. Maybe Sedano, maybe Sedano. I think it's Sedano. It would depend on them, I guess. Yeah, Samuel Sedano. What I could gather from him was that he was active from 98 to 99. And he murdered two women and five boys, which is in itself, it doesn't seem at this point that there was a specific type

Obviously, with the boys, yeah, if someone's reclared and covered in bush, as they say, then there must be some sort of sexual gratification, in my opinion, there. Yes. For our dear listeners, Mr. Sadino, assaulted, strangled.

Two women, five boys, and as Mr. Dolby said, first he undressed them and probably raped them, and then he took and clothed them again, put their clothes back on. Now, neither Mr. Dolby nor myself are criminologists. We are hobby enthusiasts.

But my theory regarding cases where the killer dresses the corpse of their victims, the usual reason, motivation for doing that is shame. They feel ashamed about what they have done. They want to somehow make it better, give the victims perhaps some dignity in death. And

I mean, this is an extreme form of something many of us perhaps have experienced. I mean, maybe you've gone on a violent, rage-filled tantrum regarding IKEA furniture, and then you maybe took the hammer and smashed into the coffee table or the wall. And then you've immediately afterwards felt a deep sense of shame and anger.

about how you could let yourself get so carried away. I mean, it's, and of course, there's sexual things as well, but we're not going to go into that. But I mean, most of us can probably imagine this feeling of doing something

having outbursts and then feeling shameful afterwards. And for Mr. Samuel Sidano, this would be an extreme case where he went to great lengths, not once, not twice, but seven times. And every time he was finished, tried to cover up his depravity and clothe his victims so that it wouldn't appear

that anything disgusting had been going on, which of course it had. That's my theory anyway. What do you think, Mr. Dolby?

Yeah, look, I think too, you're correct in assuming that as well. My other assumption would be that, and I've seen this in the past with other serial killers as well as serial offenders in general, especially serial rapists, is they will cover up, it's as you put it, it's a form of covering up so that it puts the investigation off right at the start of it.

So, addressing the victim so that it seems that there's no sexual assault when in fact there has been sexual assault is key to it as well. And only after they start doing the autopsy or the investigation leads to an autopsy, they may find that sexual assault has occurred.

And in those cases, now you're looking at sex kits or rape kits at least that have to be taken swabs and everything and then that has to be sent in. So now it's a stalling of the investigation. I may be wrong again, but yeah, I think it's covering up the act as well as shame. It's twofold in my opinion, for sure. That's a very, very good point. The simplest solution is often the most correct. And for a serial killer trying to...

cover up his tracks and throw the investigation off course is a prime motivator, for sure. Anyway, Mr. Sidano, he operated in Pretoria, Capital Park in Pretoria, and he was apprehended on the 6th of January 1999, when your humble host was 18 years old, and he was sentenced to seven life sentences, that is 40 years

in jail so uh for what I can gather from this he is still in jail is that correct I gather so I I don't think they would release them anytime soon especially when public interest is you know key a lot of the times some some of the guys slip under the radar and the public outcry is minimal because a lot of the times it's not known but when someone is well known as today I know

is in prison. If they had released him on early for good behavior or something, I mean, that would be an outcry from the public. Plus, the crimes that he has been sentenced for are of such a nature that I don't think he will be released any time soon. It's not culpable homicide. It's actually murder. So,

In the case of, for instance, if we take someone who committed top this isn't in terms of South African law, if it were culpable homicide, it would be defined as the unintentional killing of another human being. A good example of that could be, for instance, with Oscar Pistorius when I don't know if you remember him, the para para Olympic athlete that killed his girlfriend.

he was tried for murder and he actually got culpable homicide or they held him accountable for culpable homicide because it was uh they felt it was unintentional that was the initial proceeding in any case so in terms of this because of the culpability and the intent being the intentional killing of another person the the um intent being as strong as it is i don't see his release date being anytime soon right that's good to hear

And so we move on to the first unknown case, the case that got Mr. Dolby going, as it were, the case that triggered his collection of more and more cases. So number nine, if I am to read his form here, started in 2004, is perhaps still currently active. Ten confirmed kills.

Five additional could be many more. There's very little information to be found. The victims were bound. They were found near streams in Pretoria. And I thought this was quite interesting because this harkens to the episodes before this interview series, The Green River. Again, we have a serial killer dumping his victims in or near a river.

Only this time it happened not in America but in South Africa, to be precise Sunnyside, East Lynn, Esterøst, CBD, Kolbin, Pretoria. So the last updated report was from the 1st of August 2013. In one case the girl phoned her mother to say she was boarding a taxi and was on her way home.

So, Mr. Dolby, I gather that you have some thoughts regarding this unknown, possibly still active serial killer. Ah, yes, Thomas, this did get me started, to be honest with you. I read this and every now and then I would look for updates. And once again, every time there'd be an update, I'd take a little bit of information from that and a little bit more.

Initially, what happened is the 2013 article referred back to 2004, saying that it could possibly be linked to 2004. Now, in terms of this, you raise a very interesting point, especially when we look at

where they are found, you know, near streams, as you say, or as we put it as well. Now, in South Africa, I put this theory as the mobile killer theory down, because if we look at where the killer operated and you look at a map of Victoria, so Sunnyside, Eastland, Yistrist, CBD, Colborne,

And the one where you said that the girl found her mother in a taxi. Now, what I'm suggesting and what I've been looking at is all along, if you follow the line from Victoria Central eastwards, I feel like the killer is moving in an easterly direction and committing these murders on that route. If you look plainly and you look at the clusters.

the reasoning, although that's my reasoning behind that anyway, is it's just in plain sight. As for killing next to streams and rivers, the destruction of evidence in terms of water, water can destroy evidence quite a bit. And I think that might be one of the reasons. If you look at Gary Ridgeway, obviously there was still evidence present and it doesn't destroy evidence as blatantly or as openly as fire does. Fire is a

And I'm quoting Mr. Paul Holes here as well. He says that fire is the ultimate destroyer of DNA and evidence. Water can also destroy, but there's still some recoverable. So I don't know if this is as a result of convenience, but the killer is doing it as a result of it's there and it's easy. And that's why he is committing the crime.

But what I do know is that there's a lot of different similarities in the murders. And what I found with all of or the majority of these is they can be classed into three different categories with different keywords, which I've highlighted. The first being, let's say, stabbing and homeless and plastic. Number two would be limbs and then felt or strangled.

and streams and rivers and strangled. Now, if you look at the keywords here and we look at all the unknown victim or the unknown killers that we find, you'll see that they can be classified into any of these categories and it'll be one, two or three or maybe a little bit of both. But my theory at the moment is that it's a mobile killer. He may still be operating in the Pretoria area or he may have moved out of that area into a different area and he might be operating there as well.

And if this happened in the West, if this happened here in Oslo or in New York or Seattle, I mean, there would be task forces dedicated to this. There would be a media sensation. I mean, everyone would be working on solving this, on stopping this guy. But in South Africa, as far as I can gather, this case is almost unknown to people.

It is known and we actually, apparently we have one of the best task forces in the world that has been operating and has been very successful in tracking down these guys.

Apparently, they've got like a 70% success rate, which I don't know. I feel like it's the same as in the US where a jurisdiction or a county would say that we have 100% success rate, but they're based that on different factors, which I don't agree with and I can't see it. So I don't know. It just doesn't make sense. But apparently, we do have a very good task unit that is

responsible for taking these guys down and they have been very successful in the past so

I wouldn't blast them. I think the problem here is that crime is so rampant in South Africa that it's difficult to keep track and to actually be able to say, okay, well, we're going to task these people to be in charge of this while other people take care of another matter because it's just, it's happening everywhere every day. You know, it's just unfortunate that we're, that I come from a country that has such high crime rates. Right.

Well, okay. Thank you for correcting that. So that was the first unknown. Then we move on to number 10, Wellington-Kachidza.

which is a very recent serial killer case. I'm just overwhelmed with this list because if there are serial killer cases in the West, in America, England, Russia, even in Japan or Korea or even China, usually we hear about it in the media. Usually there are some mention of it here in the West, in the mainstream media, but

I mean, I don't recognize any of these cases on this list. I've never heard of it, except for this first one we covered in the last episode. So Wellington Cachidza, I mean, this is a recent case, January 2018 to December 2019, killed eight males. I mean, eight people. And he bludgeoned them to death. And again, this happened right in Pretoria, Estherest.

And he was sentenced. He was caught. But again, this is a very prolific serial killer. Eight kills is quite high. The average is usually three or four. So eight kills is a very high number. It's very odd that these cases are not profiled more. So it strikes me as strange. And it's a bit sad because, I mean, people should

be aware of the horror that these people inflict on not just their victims, but society at large. All of this happens in Pretoria. And to be honest, I'm not very much tempted to visit Pretoria. It seems like a very, very dangerous place. Perhaps you can enlighten us a bit more about Mr. Kachidza.

There's not much known about him, unfortunately. The only thing, well, the only facts that we do know is that he was operating from January 2018 to December 2019, which I think is not true. I think that is what they put down in order to have something. I think, in fact, if you're able to kill eight people that you have been operating for longer than that, that is just my theory. I may be wrong. I may be right. I'm not, again, not a criminologist, but

Usually when people are able to get away with eight murders before they get caught, even in a country where crime is rampant, it just says that this killer does have experience. As you said, it is not a low number. So to be able to get away with that, if you're looking at numbers in the US, if someone murders eight people in the US, it becomes considered a very prolific killer. If you look at, for instance, let's take Todd Caleb.

I don't know if you remember Todd Colip. He was also operating. They caught him recently. He had one of the girls actually still locked up in one of, I can't remember if it was a container. I did an expose on Mr. Colip. So yes, yes, yes. Great. I must have listened to it then. So yeah, for instance, Todd Colip, he killed a few people as well, but he's more prolific than Wellington Kachitso who killed eight people.

The bludgeoning his victims to death method, once again, that actually falls outside of the unknowns. So the modus operandi changed a bit, yeah, in terms of what we're used to. We did discuss one of the killers before in the first part of this who also bludgeoned to death or stoned to death the victims. So that's quite similar. But otherwise, there's not much known about him, unfortunately. Yes.

Again, it's a bit weird. And just briefly to mention Mr. Kolop. I did an expose on him because Mr. Kolop, he didn't kill many people. I think he... Let's see if I can find it here. I think it was the Superbike store he killed the owner, the mom. I think it was about seven people. There we go. There we go. Mr. Todd Kolop. Seven. He killed seven people.

The thing that made Mr. Kolop so fascinating, and for my dear listener who wishes to listen to Mr. Kolop expose, look up the Serial Killer podcast on the 13th of April 2020. That's when this was released. Now, he's the stuff of nightmares because he operated just like in a horror movie. He kidnapped his victims.

And he had a dedicated shipping container in his backyard. And inside the shipping container, he kept his victims chained up.

And of course, he raped and tortured them there before he killed them. The authorities managed to rescue the last victim and she survived. And there's video of her being rescued. So it's a really, really fascinating case. And I encourage everyone to take a listen to that episode. But again, seven kills. Yes.

Huge case. There's probably going to be movies about him. There's probably books written about him already. But Mr. Kaczynski, eight kills. That's more kills than Kolob. No one's ever heard of him. Totally unknown guy. It's all we know is the very bare bones of the case. And we know where he operated again. You know, if it's Yesterst, it's part of that area in Pretoria again where you're moving eastwards.

Yes. So that was the last known killer on the Pretoria list. The rest of the cases that we're going to go through are all unknowns, which is truly, truly frightening, especially since many of them are still active. Number 11, unknown, nicknamed the Drain Pipe Killer, operated by

I mean, very, very, very recently, May of this year. So this is an ongoing case. So far, four victims, one man, three children.

The bodies and heads were found covered in plastic. The area that he operated or her, we don't know, probably a man though, is Centurion, still in Pretoria, I surmise, and he's still active. So, Mr. Dolby, what can you tell us about the drainpipe killer? Well, Thomas, what I did here is

I took excerpts from articles that I felt were applicable in terms of what I saw in the clusters. I did say drainpipe killer, but that's more for reference for us so that we can understand the meaning behind it.

Being that in this case, a lot of these guys are found in or near streams, rivers, drain pipes, any water or area of water, a body of water. In this case, the only thing I can make out here was that they were found, the bodies and heads were covered in plastic, and that's it. They didn't say anything about there being active killer or anything such as that. But I surmise that obviously because they're saying it's the same MO,

that maybe this would also be someone. So I classed them all into that category as well. So if we're looking at this, it would be classified under number three as streams, rivers, strangled. I don't know what the method of killing is, but I do know that the bodies were found in drain pipes and bodies of water. Right. And again, it's a strange case because we have

a very similar MO in the manner of disposing of the bodies and the treatment of the corpses. But the victimology, the type of victims varies, which is unusual. I mean, we have one adult man

being killed and then you have three children. So this is unusual. I mean, normally for a serial killer, the victims will share some similarities. I mean, for instance, female prostitutes or children, female children, male children, adult males, etc. But here we have a mix.

So it's interesting, especially the mix between adult and child. This is very unusual. Yeah, look, that also, sorry to interrupt, Thomas. The reason I put up number 12 there, the one after this is, as you can see, it's once again found in Water Canal. And in this article, they actually said that a multimurder is suspected.

But in this case, it was one man and it was an armless head. He was armless and headless and he was only in his underwear found in the water canal in Pretoria. So I have put all these guys together because of the water, the body of water. And you'll see a lot of these pop up with unknown, unknown.

Right. So just to keep the record straight here, we now move on to two cases where, strictly speaking, we don't know if these are serial killer cases, but there are elements to the cases that strongly suggest that this is a serial killer case. So number 12, as Mr. Dolby

mentioned here. The victim was found in 2004 in November. One man, and usually when you find a murdered person,

Nothing indicates a serial murder. Usually, I mean, in the 99% of cases, murders are related to drug dealers or it's regular violence, robberies, etc., etc. But this, here we have a torso with only the legs attached, head removed, arms removed, only wearing underwear, found in a water canal.

So obviously the killer has gone to great lengths to try to make it impossible to identify the victim, because if you don't have the arms, you don't have fingerprints. And if you don't have the head, you don't have dental records. So you're only left with DNA. And if the person is not registered in any DNA database, then you are out of luck. You will not know who this victim is.

And so this is a pro. Either it's a criminal assassination. I perhaps suspect this. But as Mr. Dolby said, the authorities suspect a multimurderer being responsible for this. So maybe the authorities knows more than we do.

So a very interesting case. Also, this happened in Pretoria. Again, quite recently, in 2004. Moving on to number 13, also a case of one victim, found very recently, the 27th of December 2021. But listen to this. Only a torso was found, and it was found near the Rodeplatt Dam.

The head was missing. Several limbs were missing. Campers and fishermen saw men throwing something into the water. So this is a very interesting case, very similar to the one before. Perhaps it is the same. Discover Hydro, the best kept secret in fitness. Hydro is the state-of-the-art at-home rower that engages 86% of your muscles, delivers

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Visit betterhelp.com slash serialkiller today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash serialkiller. People responsible, what do you think, Mr. Dolby? Thomas, you'll see recurring themes here, the one being water, the other one being the removal of lymphs.

I think in this case, we have perhaps multiple individuals at work, but in the same breath, it is shocking to know that there would be more than one case that have the same or where the same method is being or has taken place.

So for me, if I look at this and then there are fishermen that are saying that they saw men throwing something into the river, it means that, okay, perhaps this could be more than one person doing it. But then if we go back to the previous case, once again, it's so similar in MO. And let me tell you, the area of Winning Nest, France and Pretoria is not that far away from Witteplot Dam.

Nowhere in Victoria is really far away from, you know, if you start at one point and you move to the other point, it's not that far away. So again, it could be multiple people, as they say, that they saw someone throwing, or they saw people throwing them into the dam. And you know what? We used to go fishing there all the time. Actually, one of my previous work colleagues lives in that area still.

And the Camille Drift area in Pretoria is quite well known for a lot of quite serious crimes that have occurred there in the recent past, unfortunately, because it's a lovely area. But we used to go fishing and camping there all the time, which is just unfortunate. But in this case, it could be multiple or it could be one, but I'm passing them all together because once again, it is the removal of limbs.

and it is near a body of water. So it could be classed under either number two or number three at this point. I see. I agree. It's...

It's in any case very fascinating and terrifying. And it's very unfortunate that areas that used to be known for its natural beauty and recreational opportunities for families and the general public now become notorious crime scenes. Okay, number 14. Here we have a very interesting case. We have four suspects apprehended.

There's no information as far as I can tell regarding who these people are. Very recent case, I think, three bodies were found and it's quite gruesome. These three individuals were killed in one of the

worst ways possible. I usually go into detail regarding ways of killing people to let the listener understand the horror that serial killers inflict upon people. And I've talked at length about how horrible it is to be strangled.

Due to the pain, it lasts a long time before you go unconscious and die. Often the trachea is crushed and you drown in your own blood. It's terrible. But this time, this is even worse. These victims were buried alive.

Yes, buried alive. That means that they were in some way strapped to the ground or kept in place while the killers heaped dirt over them until they were completely covered in earth, gravel, dirt, etc., and expired. So can you imagine? Not only are you suffocated, but you are breathing in dirt, earth.

And the panic as you're laying there, being covered slowly by dirt, earth, mud, sand, who knows? I mean, it's unimaginable. Absolutely unimaginable horror. Three times this is known to have occurred. And again, it happened in Pretoria. And this is a name I am going to have trouble pronouncing. Olivenhutbush.

But four suspects apprehended, which is odd. Do you know anything about this case, Mr. Dolby? Thomas, I know about as much as you do, unfortunately. There wasn't a lot released about this. I put this in here because it just demonstrates the, I guess, the horror of what one person can do to another person.

I think it's horrible. Obviously, it's just horrible the way of dying, but I've included it in there because I think being buried alive and three bodies found is, you know, that also forms part of... They didn't say, obviously, the method being buried alive

is that it deviates from the three different MOs that I have written down as well. So if it's someone who's operating or four suspects that have been apprehended, perhaps these guys were also working together, which means we have multiple serial murderers running around, which is actually a scary thought in itself. Absolutely.

We are well aware of serial killer couples operating. I mean, oftentimes there are duos, sometimes two guys. But most of these cases where several people cooperate in serial murder, it's a matter of a man and a woman. And one of them being the dominant part, the other being submissive.

But here we have a case where it's possibly four people engaging in serial murder. So a serial killer gang. And I can scarcely imagine anything more terrifying. So it's scary, absolutely scary. And again, so little information about this. And just imagine, I know I repeat myself, but imagine, Alice, if in Paris, Europe, there was

a gang of people that went around and killed people by burying them alive. I mean, it would be on CNN every day until the case was solved. But here, it's impossible to get even the most basic details. And this happened in August of 2020.

So again, very recently, you would imagine the police have a lot of resources available to investigate the case and they have apprehended the suspects, but so weird that the media is totally absent in this case. Very, very young. Moving on to number 15. Again, very recently, February 2021, so last year.

Here again, we have a case that may not be a serial killer case, but perhaps it is. There are things suggesting that we have a serial killer on our hands. Unknown suspect. We don't know what this is. This could be an ongoing case. Here we have two girls. I don't know their ages, but young women, girls, they were found and they were burnt beyond recognition.

So either the killer killed them first and then burned them, or they were burned as a method of murder. I don't know. Do you, Dolby?

I wish I did again. It's going to be a recurring phrase, I guess. But I think why I put it down here is just to reiterate the pre-disposition, well, how Attridgeville once again is in the, not even in the headlines, but in my headlines of producing this predisposition towards violence and, you know, creating or creating a

a lot of serial offenders in that area. When I see the area at Richville, I tend to put it in there as well just to say, look, there's another one and there's another one. It's like a high producer of violent offenders. Yes. Yes. Moving on. Number 16. All I can see there is there's two victims. This is from 2010. Unknown suspect.

The victims were found naked and they were stabbed in the neck and listen to this, in the air. Very, very painful and of course lethal. Again, in Pretoria, in the Garankova district. Do you know anything more about this case?

Not only that was given in the article, but yeah, once again, the other thing that is also quite prominent in South Africa, and I don't know if this is true in many other states, but South Africa is quite well known for a lot of violent crimes within the families. So there's a lot of violent crimes, obviously towards women and children.

but inside the close-knit families and the family relationships. So I don't know if this is related to that, but it may well be, and it may not be. But once again, I put it in there because it's more than one victim. Okay, number 17. This is a more serious case, at least in terms of numbers. This is

Probably not an ongoing case, but it's not solved. It went on from October 2000 until March of 2012. So in October 2000, four bodies were discovered. In April 2003, one man, one woman with multiple stab wounds to upper body and face. February 2008, there was a woman that was found. In May of 2010, a newborn baby found in a plastic bag.

March 2011, again a newborn baby that was dead that was found. 2nd of March, two teenagers were found with multiple stab wounds in their upper bodies and one man, again with multiple stab wounds. In a total of 12 victims. This happened in Skinnerspruit in Pretoria West.

Quite a serious case. Why have you put all of these in the same case, Mr. Dolby?

I think at the end of the day, the area itself is quite small, first of all. And then secondly, I see a lot of stabbings occurring here in this specific area as well. But I put this in here because as I understand it, and anyone can correct me who's a criminologist, but the MO of a serial killer doesn't always remain the same and they perfect their methods as they go along. They will try one thing and if they find they don't like it,

they may try something else and they may experiment a little bit, you know, and they, you know, for he might, the guy may read that someone tried doing something to a body and he wants to try it. He may try it once and then find out, okay, well, look, I don't like that. And then revert back to what he knows and what he likes. I'm not saying that the newborn baby, I think that falls outside of the scope of the serial killer aspect of things. I think that is the discarding of,

of babies which is also quite prevalent in South Africa unfortunately. You read about that regularly in the news where new moms actually dispose of their kids in rubbish bins and so on or you find them in different places. So that's unfortunate that that occurs. So I don't think that falls within the scope of this operator or the serial killer or killers.

But because there are multiple stab wounds and because again, sprites translated into Afrikaans is stream basically. And that's what it means. Skinner sprite is Skinner stream. So if you Google Skinner sprite and you go into Google Maps, you can actually see it. But yes, that's what I think, Thomas, is I put it down there because of the stream connotation to it and obviously stab wounds. And I don't believe that serial killers

just stick with one method or victim. I think they are opportunistic and they are creatures of habit as well. So they will do what they find is comfortable to them. And in the opportunity of seeing, oh, well, someone's walking there or someone's wandering there, they will take that chance. And even if it doesn't fit their victimology or their criteria 100%, they will take the risk. Well, sometimes it is...

I am going to have to disagree with you a little bit. I think that serial killers, especially psychopathic organized serial killers, are quite locked in their MO, in their signature, as it were. And they're also quite locked in how they choose their victims. But I agree 100% in that they are often evolving. They may start out doing one thing and then they escalate. This, of course, happens. I don't think

for most cases of serial murder that the killers are opportunistic, that they just lash out randomly. That's very rare. Usually they take their time in choosing a victim. But I mean, serial killers come in all sizes and shapes.

For sure, I agree with you. I think you get your, as we said before, disorganized and organized serial killers as well. Whereas the organized Dennis Raiders of the world and Ted Bundy's will plan it up to a T and they will stalk their victims and their plan. I think you said last time that he called them his projects, right? That's correct.

So yeah, definitely. I think that in certain circumstances and certain serial killers, they are organized and they will plan it up to a T and they will commit the crime as they want and as they have been fantasizing about as well.

Indeed. So just to reiterate to our dear listeners, this case might seem a bit messy. And the reason for this is, first of all, there's so little information to go on. Mr. Dolby here has spent a lot of time gathering information and his own research in this case. But what we have is 12 innocent people.

having been killed in various horrible ways in a very, very, very small isolated area. We are talking about a small stream inside an already very limited area in Pretoria in South Africa, in West Pretoria in South Africa. So in one little stream, 12 innocent people were found murdered in the period between October of 2000 and March of 2012. Very, very serious, very interesting event.

almost no information available. Moving on to number 18. This happened in May of 2018. Again, quite recently, three people, three men that have been killed. And Mr. Dolby has written enigmatically, "Prophet lured men." Enlighten us. Again, with the article, it's quite limited. But as I understand it, the prophet lured the men to a cave somehow. I guess it's for religious reasons.

And it's in a cave in Flock Plas in Victoria West area. And this is where they were murdered. There's not much known about the case as I understand it, or as I haven't read much about it, but that's literally the extent of my knowledge at this point.

I would really, really like for any South African listeners to come forward. Send me a DM on Facebook and Facebook Messenger. You can find me there, Thomas Rosland Weyberg Zoom.

Send me info if you know anything about this prophet killer, because this is the stuff of movies. I mean, listen to this. I mean, you have a guy pretending to be a holy man, a prophet, managing to lure men away into an isolated cave, where he then proceeds to murder them. I mean, this is like a movie.

And there's so little information. So I would love to know more. And of course, the authorities would also probably love to know more. Moving on to number 19. December 2014. Three children, boys, last seen after school, probably drowned. Again, in Pretoria, in the Memelodi East area. What do you know about this, Dobin?

Again, limited insight here, Thomas. I said drowned question mark because I think I read somewhere that that was the conclusion. So maybe down to misadventure, but I would have to have a look at that again, that specific case to see what happened exactly.

The information, again, is limited about a lot of the cases, which I apologize for, but there's not much to be found. I just so happen to stumble upon these because I spend hours searching specifically for keywords and it's what I come up with.

If there's anything to learn from this is that there should be more follow-ups or more information given to the public afterwards, after these things have happened. You know, if there are kids that have passed or if something's happened, then please just provide us with more information afterwards to say that this is what happened. Exactly. So I'm going to do, we are running a bit short of time here, but we are nearing the end. I promise there is now. I hope you find this as fascinating as I do, because I mean,

As far as I know, there is very little attention given to serial killers in South Africa. So I hope that this discussion with me and Mr. Dolby here can shed some light and give South Africa some attention, some much-needed attention regarding this very serious topic of serial murder. So we have number 20, number 21, and number 22

I put them together because they all concern men. The first case, three men were found murdered in October 2015. Again, as Mr. Dolby has mentioned several times here, the commonality, the bodies were found near or in a stream.

So the first one was found near Kåga Senytur. The second was found near Seiler and Frederika Street. And the third was found in a stream near the footbridge on Trans-Orange Street and Vom Hagen Road, Pretoria West. Case number 21, 27th of January, perhaps this year, Mr. Dobby can enlighten us in a moment.

One man, a naked man found in a stream next to Solomon Malango Drive in Pretoria. And number 22, a killer of homeless men. It occurred very recently in June and July of 2019. Five homeless men.

were all found with injuries to the back of their heads and stab wounds. They were found in Muklenäck, Pretoria, near Mjölnir's train station, Magnolia Park. That's a very cool name, Magnolia Park. The fourth one was found in a bus terminal about 400 meters from UNISA's main campus in Muklenäck.

And the fifth one was found again in a bus terminal about 400 meters from UNICEF's main campus in Moklenok.

All right, Mr. Dolby, I went through three of these cases. Do you wish to correct me on my presentation of them? And could you perhaps enlighten us regarding the number 21 case? You have written the 27th of January. Am I correct in assuming that you mean this year?

Yeah, I think it is this here, Thomas. The reason being is on number 20, where you're talking about three men, there was a bad smell. The body was found in a stream. It was the third body that was found. And then they only refer back to the other bodies after that. And you got the areas right as well. The reason I put these, why I think it's good that you classed them together. And then the next being the naked body of a man in a stream. And then obviously,

If we're looking at number 22, which is the homeless killer, he's actually known to be as, or he was known to be a serial killer operating in Victoria at that time.

And my suspicion is that the previous two were also homeless people, but these occurred before. I remember being in law school then still, you know, I mean, this is quite recent. I was doing law school at night and I was on the campus in Pretoria at Pretoria University when these offenses were taking place.

and i remember actually the whole time period when this was occurring as one i thought to myself this is when i started delving into this stuff again and thinking wow this is interesting there have been arrests and there have been some updates but i don't think there's ever been a definitive answer as to you know this is the guy that was the homeless killer i may be wrong but up to this point i haven't been able to find anyone specifically i know that someone has been arrested in connection with it but i don't know if that person's been released again so

It's quite interesting, again, with the keywords homeless, stabbing, that seems to be a common theme. I do remember having a look at these and thinking to myself, especially in terms of number 22, the homeless killer, that if I recall correctly, some of the murders were occurring on repetitive days of the week, on a weekly. At first it was a bi-weekly, then it was weekly, and then

All of a sudden, I don't know if it just stopped, but I do have the last number here. And I don't think that this would be the only number of people that were murdered here. It also connects with the last ones that are the other numbers I put on here, especially if you're looking at Skinner Sprite and you're looking at those individual murders. The method of murder is very similar with the stabbings once again.

I don't know if there was bludgeoning involved in the homeless killer as well. I imagine, or I think I heard that as well along the graphine that there was bludgeoning involved as well. But if it says stabbing and it's homeless, I think there must be some sort of linkage towards one common denominator.

Very, very interesting. Thank you for that. Moving on to the next grouping that I have decided to group together, mostly because we are running a bit short of time. But number 23, 24, and 25.

And after that, there's only two more cases that we'll briefly go through before we round up this evening's episode. So number 23, I grouped these together because all of them concerns only one victim, one man, and they are all from 2020. The first one, August 2020, the second in November 2020, the 6th of November 2020, and the last one

18th of November, 2020. I would perhaps put all of these together as one case, Mr. Dolby, but anyway, there are three men that have been killed, all of them.

quite horribly: multiple stab wounds to the chest, back, and the left arm in the first case, multiple injuries to the head and the body in the second one, and in the third case, little information regarding the cause of death. The body was simply too decomposed. It was found floating. Again, we have the similarities between the cases as they were found near bodies of water. So all of them, Pretoria, number 24 and 25,

were both found floating near a dam. I don't think it's the same dam, but they were both floating near a dam. All of them Pretoria. So, Mr. Dolby, was I correct in grouping these three cases together?

I think so, Thomas. I think a lot of the times, as you said before, there's not much clarity as to the specific area where the bodies are located. You know, if we're looking at dams, I would class them together. If we're looking at any sort of waterway, I would class them together. But then, I mean, we could separate them further and say the, you know, the method of murder is different in this case than it is in the other case. So we can separate them even further.

Then we can look at it another way and we can say, but these bodies are found in a felt or on a mountain or in a cave in some circumstances as we've seen. So it's difficult to determine. But at this point, I think if there's single stabbings and they're found in a body of water, I find it suspicious. And I think you're right in assuming that putting them together is not a bad idea. Good to know.

So, again, we don't know who the suspect is and there's very little information, but there are clear similarities, especially concerning the method of murder and how and where they were found. Moving on to the last two cases, number 26 and number 27. These cases both occurred in 2010.

one of them in March and the other in June. Number 26 took place in June. Two women, hands and feet, were cut off. They were found partially buried, badly decomposed. The area they were found, Nelmapius in Pretoria, found in a veld, and Mr. Dolby is going to enlighten us about what a veld is near the rail station.

The second case, the final one, number 27, March of 2010, Annika Smith also had her hands chopped off in the north of Pretoria, also in 2010, near Theresa Park in Pretoria. So, Mr. Dolby, what can you tell us about these two last cases?

The reason I class these together actually, and I know it's not, maybe it shouldn't be, is because I've been following Annika Smith's trial for a long time as well. I was appearing in the Pretoria North match court quite frequently, as well as the surrounding court area, and I'm actually quite familiar with the matter. I'd rather not say how, but you know, it's

people in common and it's just very close to me and close to home really. The reason I put them together is in circumstances like this, we're looking at people who are trying to hide evidence in a manner, you know, you see this often where they remove hands or feet or any part, any sort of limb to try and remove evidence. And I find that because this is in the same year and it's quite close together, a group quite

quite close together they may be connected somehow and i only saw the one of uh june i saw after i was looking at annika smith's case again and um the other reason i put it down there is once again if you look at the areas and you're moving east you go you start from eastland and you move east towards gisterist and then the other side of the road we're looking at normal appears

The area where the two women were found with their feet cut off was a normal PS area again. So that is the opposite side of the road to where that serial killer operated, which I spoke about, which piqued my interest right in the beginning. So if I assume correctly, if we have people or we have serial killers here with different MOs, different victims, there may be two operating in an area that is not big at all. They're literally across the road from each other.

The other one in Pretoria North is a little bit of a distance away, but it's not that far away. Teresa Park isn't far away from that at all. You know, it's about 15 to 20 minutes drive. So again, it's not that far away and the time in between is not that far apart either. So I've classed them together and what I've come up with now is the different, I feel like there's around three to four different killers operating.

One of them being in a very small area in that area of Victoria and the others operating as mobile or movable or they can move. So yeah, that's what I've been coming up with, Thomas. Very interesting. And before we round off, what is a veld? It's an open savannah area. It's a bush, but it's a grassy area.

Right. Wonderful. Well, Mr. Dolby, my deepest thanks for enlightening me and my dear listeners regarding serial murder in South Africa and Pretoria in particular. It has been a pleasure talking to you these last two weeks, and I hope my listeners enjoyed

Thank you.

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I hope you enjoyed listening to Mr. Dolby and myself having this little chat. Next episode will feature a classic TSK Serial Killer expose. So, as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. I wish to thank you, dear listener, for listening.

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