Between July and November 2005, three people were stabbed to death in Pretoria within a few miles of one another. According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), their bodies were found along the city's railway tracks. Two of them were found naked, with their clothes lying at the scene. At the third, the killer had left the knife. The police had no suspect, and for years the three cases stayed open.
The man who committed them was caught for something else. In the rape case that brought him in, his DNA was taken, and it matched all three killings. In August 2015, a decade after the murders, Themba Vilakazi, of Soshanguve, stood in a Pretoria courtroom with the numbers 666 tattooed across his forehead, pleaded guilty to all three, and told the judge that the underworld had chosen his victims for him. Police investigators and the prosecution rejected that account. So did the families.
Little about Vilakazi's life before the murders was reported. The NPA statement and the Pretoria News both gave his age as 33 in August 2015; the Rekord, a Pretoria community paper, gave it as 34. Either way, he was in his early twenties in 2005. All three outlets said he came from Soshanguve, a large township on the northern edge of Pretoria. One victim's mother was also from Soshanguve, according to the Rekord.
The reports said nothing of his family, his schooling, his work or any record of violence before 2005, and nothing of when he acquired the 666 tattoo or began calling himself a Satanist. What they do record is how he presented himself in 2015, and what police investigators said they found when they tested that presentation.
The first victim has never been publicly named. Court papers quoted by the Pretoria News said Vilakazi first killed a man in Pretoria on July 23, 2005, and that the man died of multiple stab wounds to the chest. The Pretoria News reported that the killing took place on the railway line at Belle Ombre plaza. Belle Ombre is a commuter rail station on the western side of central Pretoria.
Vilakazi's own account, given in court in 2015, was that he had been out on a morning jog when the "underworld" told him to kill the man. He said voices told him to do it "because he bore the mark of the lamb." That phrase, and the claim that he acted on instructions, ran through everything he said about all three killings.
The NPA said the first two bodies were naked and had several stab wounds to the chest, and that clothes were found at the scene. The reports do not make clear whether the July victim was ever identified by the police. None of the accounts of the plea or sentencing gave his name, his age or anything else about him, and none quoted anyone who knew him. He is a person whose life the public record does not yet reach.
The second victim was Michael Mokaba. The sources do not give his age, his work or where he lived, and no member of his family was quoted in the reports found.
The date of his death is given differently. The Pretoria News report of the sentencing gave it as August 11, 2005. The Rekord, citing court papers, said Vilakazi stabbed him between August 8 and 10, 2005. The NPA said only that the second body was found in August. Mokaba died of wounds to the neck and chest.
The Pretoria News account of the facts before the court described the circumstances in more detail than for any other killing. Mokaba, it reported, "apparently spotted Vilakazi and seven other people practising voodoo in a bush near the Pretoria zoo." He tried to run away, but was trapped by the eight people and stabbed to death. The paper's wording suggests that this was the version of events accepted in court, but the report did not say whether it came from Vilakazi's plea, from the state or from a witness. No other person has been reported as charged in connection with Mokaba's death. That question is taken up again below.
Acting Judge Daniel Mogotsi, according to the Pretoria News, treated this killing as premeditated, and it was for this murder that the paper reported he imposed a life sentence.
The third victim was a child. His name appears in three forms in the 2015 reports: Aaron Fortune Rapela Masango, in the Pretoria News report of the plea; Rapela Aaron Masango, in the Rekord; and Raipela, in the Pretoria News report of the sentence. The Rekord said he was 10 years old. The Pretoria News said 11.
His father, Reginald Green, told the Rekord what his son had been doing that day. Rapela had passed his school year, and he was on his way home to tell his family. "The boy was coming from school carrying a school bag, and his report in the hand," his father said.
According to the Rekord, Vilakazi grabbed him, dragged him into an open field near the Pretoria Zoo and stabbed him to death. The Pretoria News report of the plea said he was stabbed in the neck, and dated his death to November 11, 2005.
Vilakazi's own account, as the Pretoria News reported it, was that he received his instructions at about one in the afternoon. "The underworld indicated that they have identified a person bearing the sign of the lamb," he said. He said he was sent to buy a knife, that he stabbed the boy in the neck, and that he left the knife beside the body. That last detail matches the NPA's statement that in the third case "the knife was recovered on the scene."
The sources say little about how the 2005 investigation was run, and nothing about why it stalled. What they establish is the outcome: in the words of the Pretoria News, "the three men's murders went unsolved" until the later rape case. (The paper's plea report called all three victims men; its own sentencing report, and the Rekord, made clear that the third was a boy.)
The NPA's description of the three scenes suggests what the police had: bodies along the railway tracks, stab wounds in similar places, two victims undressed with their clothes left nearby, and a knife at the third scene. The Pretoria News reported that because two of the victims were found naked, the court believed the murders were sexually motivated.
The case was closed in the end by DNA. In a 2019 report on how South African police investigate serial murder, the Mail & Guardian credited the country's DNA database with giving investigators an unusually accurate record of serial killers. The police unit that handled such cases, the South African Police Service's Investigative Psychology Section, had been founded in about 1994 by the psychologist Micki Pistorius. By 2015 it was commanded by Brigadier Gerard Labuschagne, who led it for fourteen years and worked, by his own count, on 110 serial murder cases before he resigned in 2016. He later published a book of case accounts, Profiler Diaries (2021). Whether Vilakazi's case is among them has not been reported.
Vilakazi was not caught by a detective working the 2005 files. According to Labuschagne, as reported by the Pretoria News, he was arrested because he acted suspiciously when he saw a police officer on foot patrol. The officer stopped and searched him and found drugs. At the police station, a young man recognized him as the man who had raped him.
The NPA said Vilakazi was arrested in 2012 for raping a male victim, and that "his DNA matched all the above three cases." The Rekord also said he was arrested in 2012 for raping an 18-year-old man. The Pretoria News report of the plea put it differently, saying the murders went unsolved until 2012 "when Vilakazi was convicted of raping an 18-year-old man." By the time of his murder sentencing in 2015 he was already serving a 15-year sentence for that rape, according to the Pretoria News. None of the three gave the exact dates of the rape, the arrest or the rape conviction.
The man he raped survived. He has not been named, and should not be.
Vilakazi appeared before Acting Judge Daniel Mogotsi on Monday, August 3, 2015, and pleaded guilty to three counts of murder. The Pretoria News reported that he arrived in a black and blue tracksuit jacket and a floppy hat, with the 666 tattoo on his forehead, and that he greeted people in the courtroom before he sat down.
In his plea, according to the NPA, he stated that he was a Satanist and had received instructions from the underworld to kill the three victims, which he obeyed. The Pretoria News quoted him as saying: "There are two kinds of people on Earth." It reported him as telling the court, "I receive instructions from the beast who to kill." The Rekord reported that he said a demon possessed him during the murders and that a voice whispered in his ear that he should kill. He admitted in court to being a devil worshipper and practicing Satanism.
He also told the court about the words he had written. Beside one of the bodies, the Pretoria News reported, he had written "7 left," and he said it meant there were seven more people on his list to kill. The report did not say beside which body.
Because he pleaded guilty, there was no trial and no witnesses were called on the facts of the murders. The court's account of each killing came from the plea, the court papers and the state's case as summarized at sentencing.
Vilakazi's explanation did not survive examination. According to Labuschagne, as reported by the Pretoria News, it was proven that Vilakazi had faked his mental illness, and members of the police's occult killings investigative team had disproved his claims to be a Satanist.
The prosecution took the same view. In aggravation of sentence, State Advocate Bakedi Maoke told the court that the only reason Vilakazi had pleaded guilty was the overwhelming evidence against him. She argued that he had killed all three victims in a brutal manner and that he showed regret, not remorse. He had not been motivated by his religion or by his personal circumstances, she said, and that greatly reduced his chances of rehabilitation. He deserved, in her words as summarized by the NPA, "to be removed from society permanently."
Brigadier Labuschagne prepared a pre-sentencing report for the court. The Pretoria News described him as having fourteen years of experience with serial murder cases.
He classified Vilakazi as a serial murderer, a person who had killed more than two people on separate occasions. He addressed the question of choice directly. "Experts concur that irrespective of how or why a person became a serial murderer," he wrote, the decision "to set out and commit murder" is the murderer's own choice. On rehabilitation he was equally direct: "The current viewpoint is that serial murderers cannot be rehabilitated." He added that sexual offenders were extremely difficult to rehabilitate because their crimes were tied to their sex drive, and that rapists were among the most frequent repeat offenders.
He concluded that Vilakazi posed "a real and significant threat to adult and child males in society."
Sentence was passed on Wednesday, August 5, 2015. The three published accounts of it do not agree.
The NPA's media statement of August 6, 2015, headed "Life Imprisonment for Serial Killer," said that Vilakazi "was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Pretoria North Circuit Court." It did not break the sentence down by count.
The Pretoria News, in a report by Nomaswazi Nkosi published the same day, said Acting Judge Mogotsi sentenced Vilakazi to two 18-year terms for two of the murders and to life in prison for the third, the murder of Michael Mokaba, which the judge found to be premeditated. The paper reported that the 15-year sentence he was already serving for rape would not run concurrently with the murder sentences. It also reported that the judge ordered him to attend a sex offender program and psychotherapy in prison.
The Rekord, in a report by David Matsena, said he was sentenced to 18, 18 and 25 years for the three murders, a total of 61 years. Its headline gave the total as 62. It placed the sentencing at the Pretoria North Magistrate's Court on a Tuesday.
The NPA is the prosecuting authority in the case and the most direct voice on it; the Pretoria News report is the most detailed, and it agrees with the NPA that a life term was imposed. Taken together, they say Vilakazi was sentenced to life imprisonment, with two further 18-year terms as reported by the Pretoria News. The Rekord's figures stand as a conflicting report. Even the court is named three ways: the Pretoria North Circuit Court (NPA), the High Court in Pretoria (Pretoria News) and the Pretoria North Magistrate's Court (Rekord). An acting judge presided, according to the Pretoria News.
The NPA said it welcomed the sentence.
The two published accounts of the Masango family's reaction differ, and they may reflect different conversations.
The Pretoria News spoke to Wendy Masango, the boy's mother. She was not satisfied. "I wanted him to get the death penalty," she said. "An eye for an eye." She had wanted to ask Vilakazi why he would kill an innocent child. She dismissed his claims about the forces that had guided him: "If he was a Satanist and these things existed, why didn't they help him get out of jail?" Of Vilakazi himself she said: "He is just an animal; he doesn't belong with people.
The Rekord spoke to Reginald and Wendy Green, whom it identified as the boy's parents. Reginald Green said the sentence was justice, though it would not bring his son back. "People like Vilakazi do not have a place in society," he said. Wendy Green told the paper she had spent ten years grieving that her son's killer had not been brought to court. "We are satisfied that the case has been put to bed and that we can continue with our lives," she said.
The mother's surname appears as Masango in one report and Green in the other. Both reports say she is the mother of the boy and both give her first name as Wendy. The Rekord gives her home as Soshanguve.
No relative of Michael Mokaba or of the July victim was quoted in any report found.
Several parts of this case rest on single reports or on Vilakazi's own words.
Satanism and the underworld. Vilakazi's claim that he killed on instructions from the underworld or "the beast" is his own account. According to Labuschagne, the police occult killings team disproved his Satanist claims, and investigators found that he had faked mental illness. The prosecution argued he was not motivated by religion. What he said stands as a claim, not an explanation.
Sexual motive. The court considered the killings sexually motivated because two victims were found naked, according to the Pretoria News. Vilakazi's later rape conviction and Labuschagne's assessment of him as a threat to males are consistent with that view, but no source describes direct evidence of sexual assault in the 2005 killings.
The seven other people. The Pretoria News account of Michael Mokaba's death says he saw Vilakazi and seven other people in a bush near the zoo, and that "the eight people" trapped him. No other person has been reported as identified, charged or convicted over that killing. It is not known from the sources whether the others were identified, whether the account came from Vilakazi, or whether it was tested in court.
Seven more murders. The Rekord reported that Detective Peter Thusi told the prosecutor Vilakazi was likely to face seven more murder charges, and that the police were still finalizing that investigation. The number matches the "7 left" Vilakazi said he wrote at one scene, though the Rekord did not connect the two. No report of further charges followed. Any suggestion that Vilakazi killed more than three people remains unproven.
The victims' ages. The NPA described all three victims as black males and the Pretoria News plea report called them men; the Rekord called two of them "boys." The only victim whose age was published is Aaron Rapela Masango, given as 10 (Rekord) or 11 (Pretoria News).
Vilakazi was convicted on his own guilty plea of three murders and sentenced on August 5, 2015. No appeal against conviction or sentence was reported. When the NPA issued its statement on August 6, 2015, he was serving his murder sentences after his 15-year rape sentence, which the Pretoria News reported would not run concurrently with them.
July 23, 2005: A man, never publicly named, is stabbed to death on the railway line at Belle Ombre plaza, Pretoria.
August 2005 (August 11, or between August 8 and 10): Michael Mokaba is stabbed to death near the Pretoria Zoo.
November 11, 2005: Aaron Rapela Masango, 10 or 11, is stabbed to death on his way home from school, near the Pretoria Zoo. The knife is left at the scene.
2005 to 2012: The three killings remain unsolved.
2012 (as reported): Vilakazi is arrested after a foot patrol officer searches him and finds drugs; a young man identifies him as his rapist. DNA from the rape case matches the three 2005 killings. He is later sentenced to 15 years for the rape.
Monday, August 3, 2015: Vilakazi pleads guilty to three murders before Acting Judge Daniel Mogotsi, claiming he acted on instructions from the underworld.
Wednesday, August 5, 2015: He is sentenced to life imprisonment (NPA); the Pretoria News reports life for the Mokaba murder plus two 18-year terms, with a sex offender program and psychotherapy ordered.
August 6, 2015: The NPA issues its statement welcoming the sentence. Police tell the Rekord he is likely to face seven more murder charges.
2016: Brigadier Gerard Labuschagne resigns from the police after fourteen years leading the Investigative Psychology Section.
August 6, 2015: The NPA announces the sentence; Vilakazi is in prison. No later development was reported.