David Selepe

Death Toll Rises Again

On February 7, 1995, Col. Adrian Eager, the investigating officer in David Selepe’s death, delivered the autopsy report - which had somehow been misplaced the previous week - to the Attorney General, thereby completing the docket. The Attorney General would peruse the materials and decide whether someone should be held accountable and tried.

Less than a week later, on February 13, the body of a young black woman was found in a patch of veld near Village Deep, about 6 miles from Cleveland. Her clothes had been pushed up to above her hips, and she had been strangled with her underwear. A chill must have gone through the Brixton Murder and Robbery building when the death became known. Newspapers did not fail to make a connection between this body and the Cleveland victims, although police stated that they suspected a copycat.

During the last weekend of February, four women came forward with accounts of a black man who had approached them separately with job offers during October and November the previous year. They described an attractive man with large eyes and expensive clothes who spoke Sotho. He reportedly was a vegetarian who drank milk. When the women asked him about the Cleveland murders, he disappeared.

Meanwhile, the woman found on February 13 was identified by her brother as 22-year-old Nelsiwe Langa. She had disappeared two weeks before her body was discovered.

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1. It Begins
2. Eight Dead Women
3. Enter the Profiler
4. More Victims
5. Questions but No Answers
6. A 40-mile connection?
7. A Suspect
8. Disaster Struck
9. Verbal Lynching
10. Saving Face
11. Death Toll Rises Again
12. Another Serial Killer?
13. Selepe Mystery Deepens
14. Bibliography