South Africa has suffered a veritable plague of serial murders since the fall of apartheid in 1990, but this unidentified slayer anticipated the national trend by more than three decades. His victims, all young boys, were killed in the small Pretoria township of Atteridgeville, found with their tongues and genitals cut away during a five-month period in 1956. No clue to the unknown serial killer’s identity has yet been uncovered, and barring a deathbed confession, solution of the case seems unlikely.
Strangely, the Mutilator’s crimes seem to have set a bloody pattern in Atteridgeville, with the settlement spawning at least five more serial killers in recent times. Their number includes strangler Moses Sithole, convicted of 38 murders in December 1997, and four others still unidentified. The latter group includes killers nicknamed “Axeman,” “Beastman,” “IRON MAN,” and “Kgabi.” Fear is so pervasive in Atteridgeville, these days, that some locals suggest the township may be cursed, haunted by some evil spirit that possesses ordinary people and transforms them into monsters.
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