Arrest linked to series of murders
THE arrest this week of a man in connection with three murders in Krugersdorp has intensified rumours that a serial killer has been stalking West Rand residents.
Following the latest murder on Monday night, of estate agent Hanle Lategan, police assembled a team to look at the three cases to try to find links.
On Friday police confirmed that “after numerous hours of intensive investigation” a 29year-old man had been arrested on Thursday night. He is due to appear in the Krugersdorp Magistrate’s Court tomorrow.
The bodies of Krugersdorp insurance brokers Anthony Scholefield, 64, and Kevin McAlpine, 29, were found in plastic bags in the boots of their cars, and 52-year-old Lategan’s body was discovered in the veld near Randfontein.
All of them were last heard from on their way to 6pm appointments with mystery clients. Both Scholefield and McAlpine’s scheduled meetings were at the Key West Shopping Centre in Krugersdorp. Lategan was meeting a client at Netcare Krugersdorp Hospital.
“There is no doubt in my mind they are linked in some DATE WITH DEATH: Clockwise, Hanle Lategan, Anthony Scholefield and Kevin McAlpine all arranged to meet mystery clients on the West Rand before being murdered way,” said McAlpine’s devastated mother, Juanette, this week. “Kevin didn’t know [Scholefield], but there are just too many similarities.
“It was a nasty death . . . The keys were still in the car, the doors and windows were open. His cellphone, wallet and laptop were taken.”
McAlpine, who had celebrated his first wedding anniversary with his wife, Kezia, days earlier, accompanied her for a sonar scan hours before his death. Their baby is due in August.
His body was found less than 3km from his mother’s home on May 26. Scholefield’s body was found on May 10, about 2km from the mall.
Scholefield’s daughter-inlaw, Celia Scholefield, said he left a wife, son and daughter.
Lategan’s body was discovered by passers-by on Tuesday morning next to a stream. She had had a 6pm appointment scheduled with a prospective client from Cape Town the previous day. She was due to show the client a house; the homeowner raised the alarm when she never arrived.
Lategan told a colleague she was due to meet the client at the hospital because the client’s child was there. Her companybranded car was found abandoned at the hospital.
The family said closed-circuit TV showed that Lategan pulled in at the hospital. Once she had parked, a woman approached her and she got out of the car. That was the last seen of her.
Lategan’s sister, Riana van der Westhuizen, said they had ruled out the possibility that it was someone Lategan knew.
West Rand police spokesman Captain Appel Ernst said it was “necessary to expose or prove evidential linkages to other cases, should they exist”.
Krugersdorp community policing forum chairman Gert Jonker said: “You can’t rule out the possibility of a serial offender.”