SERGEANT’S MAJOR BUST
‘Nailing serial rapist was like moving a mountain’
● For Sgt Catherine Tladi, the five-year hunt for serial rapist Sello Abram Mapunya was personal. Gang-raped as a child, Tladi thanked God in prayer when her team’s hard work finally saw Mapunya taken off the streets.
“As a young victim of sexual violence, I never got the help that I should have received,” Tladi, 44, told the Sunday Times.
“My attackers were never caught. Getting people of the likes of Mapunya off the street and getting justice for women and children who are his victims is what drives me every day to go out and do my work,” she said.
“Knowing that I didn’t get the justice I needed, I know how important justice is for victims of crime. I do this job to make our cities’ streets safe for our women and children to walk and play in.”
On Thursday, Pretoria high court judge Papi Mosopa sentenced Mapunya, 33, to 1,088 years’ imprisonment for the reign of terror he unleashed on women across Tshwane’s townships and suburbs of Nellmapius, Mamelodi, Silverton, Atteridgeville and Olievenhoutbosch.
Mosopa, who described Mapunya as evil, sentenced him to five life terms plus 988 years for the rape of 41 women, 40 house robberies and burglaries, theft, armed robbery and assault with intent to commit grievous bodily harm. He will be eligible for parole in 25 years.
Tladi, 44, who headed the team that arrested him, this week took the Sunday Times into the heart of the investigation.
The mother of four said the realisation that they had finally caught one of SA’s most prolific serial rapists only came a few days after his arrest.
“Every day we were getting rape dockets, but we were not catching him,” she said.
“Then suddenly in the days after his arrest, the rapes suddenly stopped. That realisation, that we had nailed this elusive serial rapist, was immense. It was like this massive mountain, which we just could not get over, was just suddenly gone.
“What it meant to us then was that for the first time in a long time our communities were safe. That the women and children of Mamelodi and Atterigdeville, who had been terrorised for years, were now safe.”
Tladi said Mapunya was arrested with the cellphone of a woman he had raped earlier that day in his pocket.
It was his habit of taking his victims’ cellphones that brought him down. Detectives traced one of the stolen phones to Mapunya’s girlfriend at a downtown Pretoria shopping mall where she worked as a cleaner.
Mapunya had earlier given the mother of his eight-year-old son and four-year-old daughter the Hisense cellphone as a gift. She later testified against him.
Mapunya attacked 56 women during his five-year crime spree, which began on December 2 2014 and ended with his arrest on March 3 2019. He was convicted of raping 41 women. His youngest victim was 14, his eldest a 55-year-old grandmother. One woman contracted HIV after he raped her, another was hit on the head with a hammer when she studied his face.
After questioning Mapunya’s girlfriend, Gauteng serial electronic crimes investigation unit detectives were led to Mapunya at a games arcade in Pretoria’s CBD, where he was playing foosball (table football).
“He was so focused. He did not see us coming,” Tladi said. “He was playing as though his life depended on it. He had no idea we were there until we cuffed him …
“The breakthrough came because of three things: stolen cellphones, DNA and, importantly, his arrogance. That was how we cracked this case.”
He never committed any crimes before his rape spree started and only one victim had seen his face because he always shone a torch in the women’s eyes.
“Hunting him was like hunting a ghost.” The thought that there are still 20 of his victims who the police could never trace will continue to haunt Tladi.
“We know from DNA results that there are other women out there who reported being raped, who were raped by this man, but who we have never found. We think many were migrant workers who had returned to their home countries.”
She said after Mapunya’s arrest she prayed to God to say thank you.
“I said so many prayers for the team and I being able to take this psycho off the streets. I cried with relief because I knew if we did not catch him he would not stop.
“Like the judge said during sentencing, his use of violence was becoming worse. Our worst fears were that he would kill and we would not be able to stop him,” Tladi said.
“When I realised that Mapunya was sentenced to 1,088 years behind bars I was like, ‘Wow, this is a sign from God.’ This is finally a sign that crimes against women and children will not be tolerated.
“It meant that the thousands of hours, days, months and years we spent investigating this case were worthwhile, that we had finally brought justice to so many victims. I just cried and cried, and then I laughed and hugged the people around me.”
It was like this massive mountain was suddenly gone Sgt Catherine Tladi
Gauteng police detective