Cedric Maake was convicted in the Johannesburg High Court in 2000 of 27 murders committed in 1996 and 1997, most of them in the south of Johannesburg around Wemmer Pan, a recreation area south of the city center, and in the nearby suburb of La Rochelle, where he lived. The same judgment convicted him of 14 rapes, 26 attempted murders and 41 armed robberies. On March 15, 2000, Judge Geraldine Borchers gave him 27 life sentences, one for each murder. With the sentences on the other counts the total was reported as 1,340 years and three months, to be served concurrently.
The press called him the Wemmer Pan serial killer, and later the Hammer Killer as well, because a separate group of attacks on older shopkeepers and tailors in Johannesburg was also proved against him. His victims ranged in age from 15 to 74, men and women, and they were attacked in different ways and in different settings. TimesLIVE wrote in 2014 that the variety of the crimes had led police at first to believe that at least two killers were at work, until overlapping evidence showed that one man was responsible. He denied everything at his trial and told the court that the state had conspired against him. The judge rejected that claim and found the state's case "extremely strong."
Court reports at the time of the trial gave his full name as Cedric Maupa Maake. Most later coverage calls him simply Cedric Maake. The Cape Argus, in a 2024 overview of South African serial murder cases, gives his year of birth as 1965. IOL reported in February 2000 that he was 36 and lived in La Rochelle, a suburb in the south of Johannesburg. The Sapa news agency reported at his sentencing that he was married, with four children.
Little about his early life was reported. One detail came up at the sentencing hearing: his defense raised the death of his father when he was in Standard 8, a grade of South African high school, as a factor to weigh. A man who had survived being shot and robbed in the series rejected that argument outside court. His own father, he told IOL, had died when he was one year old, and he had not gone on to kill anyone.
Another person who followed the trial raised a different point about Maake's past. A pensioner who spent most of the trial in the public gallery told IOL that Maake had been serving a suspended sentence imposed by a magistrate in Magoebaskloof a few months before the killings began, and asked why it had not been enforced. The report did not say what offense that sentence was for, and the offense was not reported elsewhere.
The court reports describe two broad groups of crimes.
The first group was centered on Wemmer Pan and La Rochelle. The cases set out on the first day of the judgment show the pattern the court found in that part of the series: a man was shot or otherwise killed and the woman with him was attacked, and in two of the three cases she was killed as well. The court also found that he robbed these victims, taking a purse, a car radio, a pair of shoes and a firearm. The state told the court that the firearm was used in later crimes in the series.
The second group took place in Johannesburg. According to the Cape Argus, most of these victims were older men who ran small businesses, among them tailors, shoemakers and traders in fresh produce. They were beaten, and only small amounts of cash were taken. When the judgment began in February 2000, IOL reported that the court had still to decide whether Maake was the man who had attacked Johannesburg tailors, killing six and injuring 18. The Herald and Business Day, writing in 2017, gave Hammer Killer as a second name for him.
TimesLIVE summed up the range in 2014: the dead included a 74-year-old tailor and a 15-year-old girl who was walking home from a disco. The newspaper described his motives as unclear, and noted that he kept to no single type of victim and no single method.
Only some of those who died were named in the court reports. Each was a person with family who came to the trial, and several of those families spoke to reporters when it ended.
Muntu Hlatshwayo was shot dead in his car in La Rochelle in April 1997. The court found that Maake took his purse, his car radio and his firearm, and convicted him of the murder of Hlatshwayo's female companion, with other charges. Her name and age were not given in the report.
Ralph Ngwenya was killed in June 1997. Maake robbed him of a pair of shoes before killing him, the court found, and also killed the woman who was with him; he was convicted of her murder, with other charges. Her name and age were not given either.
Jerry Khanya Naidoo was killed in July 1997. The court found Maake guilty of his murder and of other charges arising from the same attack.
Jacob Nkabinde was shot and killed. Two of his relatives, one from Ladysmith and one from Newcastle, traveled to the sentencing and told IOL they were glad Maake would be removed from society for good.
Gerhard Lavoo was murdered in 1997. His bicycle, stolen from him, became the piece of evidence that tied Maake to the wider series.
The widow of another man, who was killed in their home in Regents Park in southern Johannesburg, told IOL after the sentencing that she could finally sleep at night. She had moved away after his death and was living with relatives. Her husband's name was not given in the report.
The tailors and shopkeepers, and the many people who survived attacks, were not named in the reports.
Sapa and the Cape Argus give the date of his arrest as December 1997. TimesLIVE adds that he had first been arrested a few weeks before police connected him with the killings, on charges of attempted murder and rape. The link came in 1998, when detectives learned that he had sold a bicycle to a pawn shop. The bicycle had belonged to Gerhard Lavoo. From that point the investigation, which had treated the different groups of crimes as separate, began to treat them as the work of one man.
The investigating officer was Captain Piet Byleveld of the South African Police Service, who attended the trial and the sentencing. Byleveld became one of the best known detectives in the country, and when he died in May 2017 The Herald and Business Day listed Maake among the most prolific killers he had brought to court. IOL's tribute that week named "the Wemmer Pan killer" among his cases, alongside other serial murder investigations he led.
According to Judge Borchers, the state's case rested on extensive evidence, including confessions. In court Maake denied that he had committed any of the crimes.
By the time of the judgment Maake faced 133 charges. Sapa reported that he stood trial for the murders of 35 people. The charges also covered rape, attempted murder, robbery with aggravated circumstances, housebreaking and the unlawful possession of firearms and ammunition. TimesLIVE gave a breakdown for three of the main categories: 34 charges of murder, 28 of attempted murder and 15 of rape. He pleaded not guilty.
The case was prosecuted by Yolanda du Plessis.
Judge Geraldine Borchers began delivering judgment on Tuesday, February 29, 2000. That day, IOL reported, she found Maake guilty on 18 counts: five of murder, five of rape, four of armed robbery, two of attempted murder, and two of the unlawful possession of a firearm and ammunition. She acquitted him on two further firearm and ammunition counts, because the state could not show that they concerned different weapons from those he was already convicted of possessing.
The first day's findings covered the deaths of Muntu Hlatshwayo, Ralph Ngwenya and Jerry Khanya Naidoo, and of the two women who were with Hlatshwayo and Ngwenya.
Judge Borchers described the state's case as "extremely strong" and its witnesses as reliable. Maake had given evidence in his own defense. The judge found him evasive and argumentative, said he had made an extremely poor impression, and rejected his evidence. She also rejected his claim that the state had conspired to implicate him.
On Wednesday, March 1, Sapa reported, she found him guilty on 15 more charges, including murder, attempted murder, rape and robbery. By noon that day she had dealt with 38 of the 133 charges and had acquitted him on three. Sapa's report credited SABC radio news for the verdicts. IOL had reported the day before that the rest of the judgment, including the counts concerning the tailors, was expected to take at least another day.
When the judgment was complete, Sapa reported, Maake had been convicted on 27 counts of murder, 26 of attempted murder, 41 of armed robbery and 14 of rape, together with one count each of attempted robbery, assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, unlawful possession of firearms and unlawful possession of ammunition. TimesLIVE reported in 2014 that the murder convictions came from 34 murder charges, the attempted murder convictions from 28 charges and the rape convictions from 15 charges.
The convictions covered both groups of crimes, the shootings and rapes around Wemmer Pan and La Rochelle and the attacks on shopkeepers and tailors in Johannesburg.
Maake was sentenced on Wednesday, March 15, 2000. The courtroom was full, and people who could not get in waited outside. IOL reported that each life sentence drew gasps from the gallery as it was read.
Judge Borchers imposed a life sentence for each of the 27 murders, a point the Cape Argus also attributed to the French news agency AFP. With the sentences for the attempted murders, robberies, rapes and firearm and ammunition offenses, the total was 1,340 years and three months, to run concurrently. The judge said Maake was a dangerous man who would kill without compunction and had to be removed permanently from society. She said he had caused pain and suffering on a very large scale, and that the people he had harmed were still living with the grief and hardship he had caused.
Many of the people Maake attacked, and the families of those he killed, attended the sentencing. Jacob Nkabinde's relatives said they were happy he would be gone from society for good. The widow from Regents Park said she could at last sleep at night. The man who had been shot and robbed and left for dead said he was very satisfied and that they would never see Maake in public again. The pensioner who had watched most of the trial said the justice system had worked, but asked again about the suspended sentence and said he hoped Maake would stay in prison for the rest of his life and never escape.
No appeal against the convictions or sentences was reported. TimesLIVE reported in May 2014 that he was serving his 1,340-year sentence.
How many people died. He was convicted of 27 murders. He stood trial for the murders of 35 people, according to Sapa in 2000, while TimesLIVE in 2014 counted 34 murder charges. The other deaths in the indictment were not proved against him.
The total number of charges and convictions. IOL and Sapa reported 133 charges. The Sapa list of convictions printed at sentencing adds up to 112 counts. Reports from the first day of the judgment differ: IOL said he was convicted on 18 counts and acquitted on two that day, while Sapa's report the next morning said he had been found guilty on 20.
His plea. The Cape Argus wrote in 2024 that he pleaded guilty to 133 charges. The contemporary court reports say the opposite: he denied the crimes, gave evidence that the state had conspired against him, and was convicted after a contested trial.
The arrest. Sapa and the Cape Argus place his arrest in December 1997. TimesLIVE wrote that police caught him in 1998 through the pawned bicycle, after he had already been arrested a few weeks earlier on other charges. The accounts can be read together, as an arrest in December 1997 on rape and attempted murder charges followed by the link to the murders early in 1998, but the exact dates were not reported.
His age. The Cape Argus gives his birth year as 1965. IOL gave his age as 36 in February 2000. The two are not easy to reconcile, and his exact date of birth was not reported.
1965: Born, according to the Cape Argus (2024).
Before 1996: Given a suspended sentence by a magistrate in Magoebaskloof, according to a pensioner quoted by IOL at the sentencing; the offense was not reported.
1996 to 1997: The murders, rapes, attempted murders and robberies later proved against him, in southern and central Johannesburg.
April 1997: Muntu Hlatshwayo shot dead in his car in La Rochelle; his female companion killed.
June 1997: Ralph Ngwenya robbed and killed; the woman with him killed.
July 1997: Jerry Khanya Naidoo killed.
1997: Gerhard Lavoo murdered; his bicycle was later sold to a pawn shop.
December 1997: Arrested (Sapa; Cape Argus), first on charges of attempted murder and rape, according to TimesLIVE.
1998: Police link him to the murders through Gerhard Lavoo's bicycle (TimesLIVE).
February 29, 2000: Judge Geraldine Borchers begins judgment in the Johannesburg High Court on 133 charges; guilty on 18 counts that day, acquitted on two (IOL).
March 1, 2000: Guilty on 15 more charges; 38 charges decided by noon, three acquittals (Sapa).
March 2000: Convicted in all of 27 murders, 26 attempted murders, 41 armed robberies, 14 rapes and four other counts.
March 15, 2000: Sentenced to 27 life terms, reported as 1,340 years and three months in all, to run concurrently.
May 29, 2014: TimesLIVE reports him serving the sentence.
May 2017: Death of Piet Byleveld, the investigating officer; obituaries list Maake among his cases.
December 31, 2024: Cape Argus includes him in a series on South African serial murder cases.