Sipho Dube was convicted in August 2006 of murdering seven people: a woman in Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal, and six children in Johannesburg. The killings took place between May 2001 and January 2004. Two of the children, a nine-year-old boy and his twelve-year-old cousin, were not found, and he was convicted of their murders although their bodies had not been recovered.
He was caught first not by the police but by the family of one of the children, eleven-year-old Tina Bernardes, who traced him in Johannesburg in November 2003 and handed him over. He escaped about two months later. When he was arrested again, it was for an attempted car theft, and he gave the police a false name. Superintendent Piet Byleveld, a senior police detective, worked out who he really was.
At his trial in the Johannesburg High Court, Dube denied everything and said the police had beaten him into pointing out places and signing statements. Judge Seun Moshidi rejected that account, found him guilty of the seven murders and other counts, and on August 23, 2006 sentenced him to ten life terms and a further 114 years. "The accused showed no mercy at all to his victims," the judge said.
Little was reported about Dube's early life beyond what came out in court. He came from the Ladysmith area of KwaZulu-Natal, The Star reported during the trial. When police announced in 2004 that they had found him, IOL reported that his birth had not been registered and that there were no official records of him. The reports did not agree on his age. IOL gave it as 25 when his trial opened in January 2006. The South African Press Association, in reports carried by the Mail and Guardian, gave it as 30 when he was convicted in August 2006 and as 27 when he was sentenced two weeks later.
He was reported under more than one name. IOL's 2004 report called him Sipho Dube Mthandeni Mhlangathi. After his January 2004 arrest he told the arresting officer his name was Clifford Mbatha, according to the Sapa report of the judgment.
His aunt gave the court the fullest picture of his childhood when she testified for the defense before sentence in August 2006. She said he had been a troubled child who often stole from his grandmother and who left school in standard two. She blamed his father's side of the family, saying his father had not performed imbeleko, a traditional ceremony, and she linked his behavior to that failure. The family had taken him to spiritual healers, she said, but it did not help. "He started getting involved in housebreakings," she told the court.
The prosecutor, Joanie Spies, set out his earlier record. In January 1999 he had been sentenced to three months in prison for a housebreaking in Ladysmith, and he had served an eighteen-month term for attempted theft, also in Ladysmith.
The court found that Dube killed one adult and six children. The reports carried by the Mail and Guardian named all seven.
Rashunthee Singh was the only adult. She was 39, according to the Sapa report of the sentence; an earlier report the same month gave her age as 38. She was killed in Ladysmith, the only one of the seven killings in KwaZulu-Natal.
Lukhanyo Kuwane was ten. He died in hospital. His mother attended the trial. Earlier in 2006 she had wept in court when the events around her son's death were described, and on the eve of the judgment she spoke of what the case had cost her family. "My child and others won't come back," she said, adding that she was still hoping for a conviction.
Tina Bernardes was eleven at the time of the trial reports; reports in 2003 and 2004 gave her age as ten. She lived in Jeppestown, Johannesburg, and disappeared in November 2003. Her case drew wide attention in the press, IOL noted when the trial opened.
Nomnikelo Jumba was fourteen. The judge treated a pointing-out by Dube in her case as part of the evidence against him.
Thabo Dlongolo was also fourteen.
Anele Mbuku was nine, and his cousin Siyabonga Mbuku was twelve. Both boys were taken, and neither was found. Judge Moshidi convicted Dube of murdering both of them even though their bodies had not been recovered.
The victims named across all the counts ranged in age from nine to sixteen, according to IOL's report of the opening of the trial.
The state charged that the offenses ran from May 2001 to January 2004, first around Ladysmith and then in Johannesburg. One Sapa report put the end of the period at March 2004, but the judgment and the sentence reports gave January 2004.
Judge Moshidi found that the crimes shared the same method, and that Dube had used false pretenses to take the children away. He also found that the killing of Tina Bernardes and the killing of Rashunthee Singh in Ladysmith had features in common, and he used that link in reaching his verdict on both.
Members of her family traced Dube in Johannesburg, and he was arrested on November 9, 2003, Sapa reported. Her uncle later spoke for the family at the trial. He said the case had been exceptionally difficult for all of them, and above all for Tina's father, who was still in counseling. The family, he said, wanted "a guilty verdict and a life sentence."
About two months after his arrest, Dube escaped. Sapa reported that he got away from the Wynberg Magistrate's Court in Johannesburg; IOL's 2004 report said he escaped from custody in Alexandra. The escape drew sharp criticism of the police, IOL reported, and investigators had little firm information to work with.
Four days after the escape, on January 16, 2004, he was arrested again, this time over an attempted car theft in which the car's owner was stabbed, according to the Sapa report of the judgment. IOL reported that the arrest was made by police from Cleveland, in Johannesburg. He gave the arresting officer a false name and was held under it.
Superintendent Piet Byleveld, a senior detective of the South African Police Service, took over the hunt for the escaped suspect in January 2004.
Police later announced that Byleveld had tracked the suspect down inside Johannesburg Prison, where he was being held under the false name. The police spokesman, Superintendent Chris Wilken, would not say how Byleveld had found him. "It was a difficult and lengthy process, that I can tell you," he said. It was Byleveld who established Dube's true identity, Sapa later reported. When Byleveld died in May 2017, Business Day remembered him as the "man hunter" detective.
Dube was charged with 41 counts. They included seven of murder, seventeen of kidnapping, three of robbery, and one each of theft, attempted car theft, assault and escaping from custody, with other charges. More than 150 people were listed as possible state witnesses.
The trial began in the Johannesburg High Court before Judge Seun Moshidi in January 2006. Dube pleaded not guilty to all 41 counts. He told the court that he did not fully understand some parts of the charge sheet, and the judge adjourned and asked the interpreter to explain them. Before any witness gave oral evidence, the court heard brief outlines of the state's case against him. The case was then postponed to February 20, and Dube stayed in custody.
His conduct in court drew comment from the start. During a tea break on the first day he complained about having to wait while the judges had tea, and he threatened a newspaper artist who had come to sketch him. As soon as the judge left the courtroom, he complained of a headache, IOL reported.
The heart of the defense was a challenge to how the police had obtained his statements and his pointing out of places. Dube testified that police had assaulted him and coerced him into pointing out crime scenes and signing statements that incriminated him. According to The Star, as summarized by the legal news service Legalbrief, he told the court that police had used electric shocks on him. Judge Moshidi heard those claims in a trial within a trial, in which Dube challenged whether his statements to police could be admitted as evidence.
He rejected Dube's account. "The accused's assault version was contradictory, inconsistent and confusing," the judge said. He found that the pointings-out had been "performed freely, without any assault as alleged," and that Dube had known his constitutional rights throughout. During the trial, the Sapa report of the sentence said, he swore, made threats against people in court, and tried to throw a court microphone at the victims' families.
Judge Moshidi delivered his judgment over two days, beginning on Monday, August 7, 2006, with a summary judgment that continued the next day. Relatives of the victims spoke to reporters as it began.
On August 8 he found Dube guilty of murdering six children and a woman. He also convicted him of ten counts of kidnapping, one of theft, one of robbery, one of common assault and one of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, with other charges. He acquitted Dube on several counts.
"I conclude that the state has proven the accused guilty beyond reasonable doubt," the judge said. He pointed to the common method behind the crimes, to circumstantial evidence, and to the fact that Dube had twice been present at a scene where a child was found: once when he led police to the place where Nomnikelo Jumba had been killed, and once where Lukhanyo Kuwane was found. "The totality of evidence points towards the guilt of the accused," he said.
He found it improbable that Dube had not gone to the scenes voluntarily. It was "highly unlikely," he said, that police officers and witnesses would conspire to implicate the accused falsely, and "highly improbable that senior police officers could set out to falsely implicate the accused." He convicted Dube of the murders of Anele and Siyabonga Mbuku even though their bodies had not been found.
The sentencing hearing began on August 16, 2006. A police forensic psychologist, Gerald Labuschagne, was called by the state in aggravation of sentence. He told the court that Dube could not be rehabilitated and that prison was the only option, because he was a danger to society. Dube's refusal to accept responsibility, he said, was "the first and largest stumbling block in any rehabilitation process." He warned that more children could have been harmed or killed if Dube had not been arrested, and said that Dube's intelligence had helped him win his victims' trust through what he called "a sophisticated form of manipulation."
That day Dube swore at photographers and tried to throw a bottle and a microphone at them.
The next day, August 17, the hearing stalled. Dube's lawyer, Jesse Penton, could not attend because his mother was seriously ill in hospital, and the prosecutor asked for the case to stand down to the following Tuesday. The families were dismayed. "I can't wait for this case to be finalised," Lukhanyo's mother said. "The longer it takes, the more traumatising it is." Dube came into court with a woollen hat pulled down over his face and complained that photographers who took his picture each time he walked from the cells to the dock were violating his rights.
Judge Moshidi passed sentence on Wednesday, August 23, 2006. The court was crowded with the victims' families and with law students from the University of Johannesburg.
He imposed a life sentence for each of the seven murders and three other life terms, finding no substantial and compelling circumstances that could justify anything less than the minimum sentences the law prescribed. He added a total of 114 years on the other counts, including the kidnappings. All of the sentences were to run together, giving an effective life sentence, and under it Dube could be considered for parole only after at least 25 years.
"The accused showed no mercy at all to his victims," the judge said. The crimes were premeditated and well planned, he found, and Dube had shown "no remorse at all" and "poses a significant danger to society." He called the trial long and difficult. He said he had considered imposing an indefinite sentence or setting a longer period before parole, but had decided to leave parole to the Department of Correctional Services. He told the families that they could ask to be heard at any future parole hearing.
Before the hearing he cursed the police officers who took away his bottle of flavored water. He hid his face behind a balaclava and sunglasses until the judge ordered him to take them off and stand up. He swore at photographers and television crews and told them to leave, and as he was led down to the cells after sentence he swore at the people in the courtroom.
No appeal was reported. Nothing has been reported of his custody since the sentence in August 2006.
The case returned to public attention in May 2020, when Nicole Engelbrecht's True Crime South Africa podcast, published by TimesLIVE, devoted an episode to it under the title "Sipho Dube: a phantom serial killer." The episode's summary described him moving among the mine dumps of Johannesburg in 2002 and 2003.
Dube denied all the charges. His claims that police assaulted him, used electric shocks on him and forced him to point out scenes and sign statements were heard in a trial within a trial and rejected by the judge, who found that he had acted freely.
He was acquitted on several counts, though not all of them have been reported.
The figures in the reports differ in places. His age was given as 25, 30 and 27 within one year. Rashunthee Singh's age was given as 38 and 39, and Tina Bernardes's as 10 and 11. The kidnapping convictions were reported as ten after the verdict and eleven after the sentence. The end of the period of the offenses was given as January 2004 in most reports and as March 2004 in one. The place of his escape was reported as the Wynberg Magistrate's Court in one account and as custody in Alexandra in another.
January 1999: sentenced in Ladysmith to three months in prison for housebreaking; he also served eighteen months for attempted theft in Ladysmith.
May 2001: start of the period of the offenses for which he was later tried, around Ladysmith, KwaZulu-Natal.
2001 to January 2004: Rashunthee Singh is killed in Ladysmith; Lukhanyo Kuwane, Nomnikelo Jumba, Thabo Dlongolo, and the cousins Anele and Siyabonga Mbuku are killed in Johannesburg.
November 2003: Tina Bernardes, 11, disappears in Jeppestown, Johannesburg, and is killed.
November 9, 2003: Dube is arrested after her family traces him in Johannesburg.
January 2004: he escapes from custody; Superintendent Piet Byleveld takes over the search.
January 16, 2004: arrested over an attempted car theft and held under a false name.
2004: police announce that Byleveld has found him in Johannesburg Prison.
January 2006: trial opens in the Johannesburg High Court before Judge Seun Moshidi; Dube pleads not guilty to 41 counts.
Early 2006: in a trial within a trial, he claims police assaulted him; the judge rules his pointings-out were made freely.
August 7 to 8, 2006: judgment; convicted of seven murders, with other charges.
August 16, 2006: police psychologist Gerald Labuschagne and Dube's aunt testify before sentence.
August 17, 2006: hearing postponed because his lawyer's mother is ill.
August 23, 2006: sentenced to ten life terms plus 114 years, concurrent, with parole consideration only after at least 25 years.
May 2017: Piet Byleveld dies.
May 2020: the True Crime South Africa podcast revisits the case.