True Crime Cases in South Africa

South Africa's true-crime record runs from the quiet poisonings of the 1930s to courtroom dramas watched around the world. One of the earliest cases I've documented here is Daisy de Melker, the Johannesburg nurse who poisoned two husbands and her own son. Decades later, the country produced some of the most prolific serial cases on file, including Moses Sithole, the ABC Killer, and the Station Strangler who haunted the Cape Flats.

The cases mapped here also include the killings that drew global attention: the honeymoon murder of Anni Dewani in Cape Town, and the shooting of Reeva Steenkamp by Paralympic athlete Oscar Pistorius in Pretoria. Each one I have researched by hand, working from the documented record rather than rumor.

Together these cases trace a span of roughly eight decades and several South African cities. They are not meant to define the country, only to set down what happened, where, and to whom.