Explore 20 documented cases from South Africa. Each file separates established findings from allegations and unresolved questions, with a focus on investigation rather than graphic detail.
Inge Lotz was murdered in her Stellenbosch apartment in 2005. Fred van der Vyver was prosecuted and acquitted in 2007, leaving the homicide without an adjudicated perpetrator.
Open case file →Musician Taliep Petersen was murdered in his Cape Town home in 2006. His wife Najwa Petersen and two co-accused were convicted in the contract-killing case.
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Anni Dewani was killed during a staged hijacking in Cape Town in 2010. Multiple participants were convicted, while Shrien Dewani was acquitted in 2014 after the prosecution case was dismissed.
Open case file →Karabo Mokoena, 22, was murdered in Johannesburg in April 2017. Sandile Mantsoe was convicted of her murder, an earlier assault and defeating the ends of justice, receiving an effective 32-year prison sentence.
Open case file →South African teacher Jayde Panayiotou was kidnapped and murdered in 2015. Her husband Christopher Panayiotou was convicted of orchestrating the killing and sentenced to life imprisonment.
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Police killed 34 striking mineworkers at Marikana in 2012. Fourteen years later, no successful criminal prosecution had established responsibility for those police killings.
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Seventeen-year-old Anene Booysen was murdered in Bredasdorp in 2013. Johannes Kana was convicted of rape and murder and received two life sentences.
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Stellenbosch student Hannah Cornelius was kidnapped and murdered in 2017. Three men received life sentences for her murder; a fourth was convicted of robbery and kidnapping.
Open case file →UCT student Uyinene Mrwetyana was murdered in 2019. Postal employee Luyanda Botha pleaded guilty and received three concurrent life sentences.
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South African football captain Senzo Meyiwa was killed in Vosloorus in 2014; five men are on trial, with no verdict yet as of August 2026.
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During the late 1980s and early 1990s, a series of boys were abducted and killed around Cape Town in crimes associated with the name Station Strangler.
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Daisy de Melker became one of South Africa's most notorious historical poisoners after several close family members died in suspicious circumstances.
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Several children disappeared in South Africa in the late 1980s in cases investigators linked to Gert van Rooyen and his partner Joey Haarhoff.
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A group later known in the media as the Krugersdorp Killers carried out a series of murders linked to personal disputes, fraud and a closed belief system.
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Nine people were killed and one survived an attack at the Sizzlers massage venue in Sea Point, Cape Town, in January 2003.
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Three members of the Van Breda family were killed and another seriously injured in their Stellenbosch home in 2015.
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Tshegofatso Pule, who was pregnant, was killed in Johannesburg in 2020 in a case that triggered nationwide anger about violence against women.
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University student Leigh Matthews was kidnapped in Johannesburg in 2004 and killed despite the payment of a ransom.
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