Durban — In September a man suspected of being a serial rapist and murderer operating in the Queensburgh area would appear in the trial court of the Pinetown Magistrate’s Court.
The State has been able to positively link the 45-year-old to two rapes that he will appear for in the regional court.
He is believed to have moved from the Eastern Cape to KwaZulu-Natal after allegedly raping and killing women there, he has allegedly made it hard for police to link him to cases as he cleans the scene including his victims with sanitizer after the crime to eliminate DNA.
He appeared in the district court on Friday where he had originally been charged with two counts of murder and two counts of rape and house robberies.
However, he had the two murders provisionally withdrawn on Friday while the State continued investigating.
A relative to one of the women that the man allegedly killed in Queensburgh was in court on Friday.
She spoke to the Daily News on Sunday and preferred not to be named.
The relative said Evidence Ntombifikile Seager was killed in her home in August last year, this is one of the murder cases that the State provisionally withdrew on Friday.
The other is for the murder of Savy Moodley.
“The prosecutor said they have two solid rape cases against him that can get him two life sentences while further investigating the murders and house robbery cases. They are working on more evidence linking him to the murder. So they want him to be convicted on those two solid rape cases while they investigate the murder cases further,” said the relative.
Seager was raped and stabbed 12 times in the chest and had handcuffs around her ankles.
She lived with her brother in the house that the man had broken into and his arrest came two months after her killing when he was spotted in Malvern by Seager’s brother wearing some of the items taken from the house.
Following his arrest when police took the man to his home in Shallcross more items from Seager’s home were found.
“Who does that to an innocent woman in her home? Where can we be safe if we are killed during the day in our homes? He was found with all the things that were stolen from her house during her murder. They even found other things that were stolen in other murder and rape cases. He killed her two weeks after he was released for raping and killing two other women in their houses too, police couldn’t take his fingerprints because he bit or ate his fingertips. Isn’t that defeating the ends of justice? Why wasn’t he kept in jail until they are able to take his fingerprints,” said the relative.
She said that families and the community were outraged at the murder charges being provisionally withdrawn.
“This is a serial killer and rapist, how come he is not being charged with these murders cases while he was found with all the things that he took the day he murdered and raped Ntombifikile and all the other women.”
In court the State said that the rape matter where there was a solid DNA match will be transferred to the regional court for trial, this was while there was a second rape he would face.
In this case, the State was still working on evidence to positively link the man.
The prosecution indicated that he could face two life sentences for the two rapes.
The accused appears in regional court 3 on 5 September.
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