‘I don’t know what makes these men tick’
SA a ‘ticking time bomb’ as cops identify more than 200 new serial rapists a year Police lose key weapon in war on serious crime as last forensic psychologist quits
● Lonwabo Solontsi smirked and raised his middle finger to the media this week as he was sentenced to a jail term that may prevent him from ever seeing the outside of a prison again.
The 29-year-old “pervasive and non-remedial psychopath” — who raped 39 victims in the Eastern Cape, including several teenagers and an 11-year-old — was until his arrest among the hundreds of serial rapists stalking women across South Africa.
Experts said South Africa was a “ticking time bomb” of serial killers and rapists, with police identifying on average between 200 and 300 new cases each year. Many of the perpetrators are never caught.
South Africa ranks among the world’s worst three countries — after the US and Russia — for serial murders and rapes.
Activists for children’s and women’s rights said the violent siege under which the vulnerable live in South Africa points to country with a broken psyche, where citizens are filled with a burning rage and lack any form of empathy.
Compounding the problem is the loss of highly skilled police officers due to poor pay and huge workloads. At its peak the police’s investigative psychology section had seven forensic psychologists, who assisted in profiling, tracking and arresting some of the country’s most heinous criminals, as well as testifying in court. It now has none.
Forensic psychologists are especially key in identifying serial attackers.
Among the country’s known active serial rapists are:
Gauteng’s Putfontein Plumber rapist, ● who has raped 55 people, 40 of them schoolgirls;
The Westville rapist, who has raped 12 ● women outside Durban;
The Hammanskraal rapist, who has ● raped 11 women around Pretoria;
The Kimberley Kagisho rapist, who has ● raped eight women;
The Garden Route rapist, who has raped ● seven women around taxi ranks in the southern Cape; and
The Stellenbosch rapist, who has raped ● four women near Cape Town.
On Friday in the High Court in Grahamstown, Judge Thamie Beshe declared Solontsi a dangerous criminal and sentenced him to an indefinite period in jail.
He will never be eligible for parole and any possibility of release depends on a judge and not the parole board. He will be 54 before the court will even consider it.
The former University of Fort Hare student raped six students while he was studying towards a BSc in agriculture. He quietly left Fort Hare in the middle of his final year as he feared police were closing in on him.
For the next three years he raped women and teenagers in whichever town or city he studied, worked or lived. These included his hometown of Willowvale as well as Bathurst and King William’s Town in the Eastern Cape, Stellenbosch in the Western Cape and Rustenburg in North West.
His trail of destruction finally came to an end when a DNA sample taken at his first arrest linked him to dozens of cases.
Investigating officer Sergeant Sizwe Gaika, who was instrumental in piecing together the puzzle that led to the arrest, is relieved the monster is in jail.
“Now I can move on to the next one.”
His next serial rapist exclusively targets women aged between 70 and 80.
“I don’t know what makes these men tick,” he said.
Molo Songololo child rights organisation director Patric Solomons said: “The vast number of sexual assaults shows South Africa is a damaged country. The type of
trauma that occurs from a sexual assault goes beyond the physical. There is immense psychological trauma which is lifelong. It stays in your DNA, often manifesting when a child reaches adulthood.”
Earlier this month, the last police forensic psychologist, Colonel Bronwynn Stollarz, resigned, leaving the police without vital expertise. She declined to comment.
Added to this, said police sources, is the recent loss of detectives trained in identifying psychologically motivated crimes, who were based in KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Eastern Cape. Every province is meant to have detectives trained to investigate psychologically motivated crimes.
Police management claim Stollarz’s resignation is nothing to be concerned about and that they have enough personnel and technology to help them identify and solve psychologically motivated crimes, with forensic psychologists merely playing “supportive roles” in investigations.
Police spokesman Vishnu Naidoo said five posts in the investigative psychology environment had been advertised, with the selection process concluded and appointments to happen soon.
“It is important to note that . . . neither clinical nor forensic psychologists track perpetrators. They provide a supporting function in profiling perpetrators and the provision of court guidance. The police have sufficient psychologists who can assist when the need arises.”
But Dr Giada del Fabbro, of the University of the Witwatersrand’s psychology department, warned that the impact of Stollarz’s resignation would be felt almost instantly.
“The biggest impact will be around identifying and profiling potential suspects. Another major problem will be in assisting prosecutors to convict them,” she said.
Both Del Fabbro and former IPS commander Dr Gerard Labuschagne said that, at any given time, there were at least eight active serial killers in the country, with 200 to 300 new serial rapists identified annually.
South African Policing Union president Mpho Kwinika said the loss of forensic psychologists was a serious indictment on the police and could incapacitate units investigating crimes.