Moses Sithole, the "ABC Killer"

The victims

The people at the centre of this case were overwhelmingly young Black women living in and around the townships and industrial edges of what is now Gauteng. Many were looking for work at a time when jobs were scarce, and that need was exactly what their killer exploited: survivors and investigators have described how he approached women with the promise of employment before leading them to isolated places. Among the dead was also a two-year-old child. Behind each count in the eventual indictment was a family, and for many of those families the loss came during what should have been a hopeful moment in the country's history.

A killing spree in the year of democracy

The murders became known as the "ABC" killings because they were concentrated in three areas: Atteridgeville near Pretoria, Boksburg on the East Rand and Cleveland in eastern Johannesburg. The scale of the problem first became clear in June 1994, when the remains of 15 women were discovered on a hillside in Cleveland. More bodies were found over the following months, often in clusters, in the same period in which Nelson Mandela took office as the country's first democratically elected president. By the time of the arrest, police were investigating the deaths of at least 37 women and one child, along with 40 rapes, committed over roughly 18 months.

The man eventually convicted, Moses Sithole, had earlier served a prison term for rape and had been released on parole in November 1993, shortly before the killings began. During the spree he presented himself publicly as someone who campaigned against the abuse of women and children.

The investigation and the arrest

The hunt became one of the largest murder investigations South Africa had seen. An unusual turn came when a man claiming to be the killer telephoned reporters at The Star newspaper in Johannesburg, including the young journalist Tamsen de Beer. He gave directions to bodies, and police later found remains where he said they would be. At trial, a voice expert testified that he had no doubt the caller was Sithole.

Dr Micki Pistorius, a forensic psychologist who became the South African Police Service's first profiler, worked on the case. She founded the SAPS Investigative Psychology Unit, was involved in more than 30 serial murder investigations and trained over 100 detectives in how to approach serial offenders. She retired in 2000 suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and her memoir, Catch Me A Killer, was later slated for adaptation as a television series.

Sithole was arrested on 18 October 1995 after police set a trap at a factory in Benoni, and the arrest was announced the following day. He was shot and wounded during the operation. The arresting officer testified that Sithole had attacked him with an axe; the defence disputed that account, arguing he had been fired on without warning.

Trial and sentence

The trial was heard in Pretoria, where Sithole faced charges covering 38 murders, 40 rapes and six robberies. Prosecutors relied in part on jewellery said to have belonged to victims, which his estranged wife identified as items he had possessed, as well as on recorded statements and the tapes of the newspaper calls. Sithole denied the charges.

In December 1997 he was convicted on all counts. On 5 December 1997 Judge Curlewis imposed a combined sentence of 2,410 years. Describing Sithole as cunning and articulate, the judge set the term so that Sithole could not be considered for parole for 930 years. A death sentence was not an option because capital punishment had already been ruled out in the new constitutional order.

Where the case stands now

Sithole remains in prison serving his sentence, and no news reports up to late 2026 indicate any parole process or release. In July 2025 the streaming service Showmax released The ABC Killer, a three-part documentary series directed by Jasyn Howes. It features de Beer, former detectives, Pistorius and a survivor, Buyiswa Swakhamisu, and draws on archival footage of his 1995 police questioning. Coverage of the series reported that Sithole has completed a theology degree in prison and was studying law.

Why the case matters

The ABC case unfolded as South Africa was rebuilding its police service after apartheid, and it exposed how poorly equipped detectives were for serial crime. It helped push the SAPS toward behavioural analysis and specialised serial-crime work through the unit Pistorius established. It also became a symbol of the scale of violence against women in the country, since the victims were poor, job-seeking women whose disappearances were not always quickly reported or investigated. Finally, the sentence itself reflects the period: with execution no longer available, the court used an extraordinarily long term to make clear that he should never be released.

Some details remain inconsistent between accounts. A 2024 press summary dates his offending as far back as 1987, while most accounts place the murders in 1994 and 1995. The official record rests on the 38 murders proved in court.