'Forget FBI, I've caught more than 35 serial killers and here's how I did it'
Just a couple of days after finishing university, psychology student Dr Micki Pistorius was walking through sand dunes surveying a crime scene left by one of the country’s most prolific serial killers.
After working on a doctoral thesis on the subject, she was suddenly thrust into the horrors of the real world as South Africa’s first serial killer profiler. It was February 4, 1994 at the Atlantis Dunes, in Cape Town, and detectives hoped then 36-year-old Micki could develop a criminal profile desperately needed to catch the Station Strangler - responsible for raping and strangling 21 boys, but who had eluded them for eight years.
Micki sat on the sand - and thought about how the latest young victim could have been lured to such an isolated area. Her thoughts were cut short as the wind blew the sand and uncovered a small skeletal hand.
She says: “I wondered if the killer would have touched his hand. The boy must have trusted him and held his hand all the way to the Dunes. What would the mother have given just to be able to touch her son’s hand again?
“The sadness of it was almost overwhelming. It was my first few days in this new career. It struck me: this is not a game, this is real. Growing up in South Africa, I grew up around crime, but this was my first real direct experience of it.“
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Less than three months later, thanks to Micki’s profile the Station Strangler was caught. And so began six years of profiling and aiding detectives to catch over 35 serial killers.
Micki’s work as South Africa’s first serial killer profile is told in a new 11-part drama series Catch Me A Killer airing on Alibi on Tuesday. It’s based on her bestselling memoir and stars Game of Thrones actress Charlotte Hope as Micki.
She draws up criminal profiles of killers (Collect)Explaining the title, she says: “I started giving courses on criminal profiling to detectives. At the end of one course. I said, ‘what are you waiting for? Go catch me, a killer’.”
The drama begins with that first job after joining the South African Police Service 30 years ago - catching the Station Strangler, primary school teacher Norman Afzal Simons. Micki, who is now living in Mauritius, says: “What was noticeable was that these were not street children. They were schoolchildren. They would only trust a teacher or preacher and follow him into the Dunes.”
Micki’s work soon gained the respect of renowned FBI agent and criminal profiler Robert Ressler - known as the Mindhunter and the man on whom the Netflix show of the same name is based. Credited for coining the term ‘serial killer’ in the 1970s, he worked on the Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy cases.
Robert flew to South Africa during the hunt for serial killer Moses Sithole in August 1995. Sithole raped and murdered at least 37 women - strangling them.
“I had read all of Robert’s books. He had retired by then, so I found his email and sent him my profile of the killer. He came to South Africa to teach the detectives and lecture on my courses," explains Micki. As well as supporting Micki’s profile, Robert also agreed with Micki’s prediction that Sithole would contact the media to brag about his crimes.
MIcki's work has been praised by the FBI (youtube)The Moses Sithole case proved to be complex as another serial killer, David Selepe, was on the loose at the same time, and some of the crime scenes even overlapped. “People wondered if they were both killing together, But it is quite possible to have two different serial killers operating in the same area and to have a similar modus operandi - but there were clear differences,” says Micki.
David Selepe is believed to have killed 11 women in Johannesburg during 1994. He was shot dead while trying to escape police custody. Micki reveals: “Selepe was killed the day before I was due to interview him. He raped and strangled his victims and had a disregard for women but he would keep mementoes such as jewellery.
“Moses Sithole was much more sophisticated in his modus operandi, and he inflicted severe psychological torture upon his victims by showing them the decomposing bodies of previous victims.“ The horrifying scene is as depicted in the TV series.
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A still take from the TV show Catch Me A Killer (Photography by Inge du Toit | African Photo Productions)During the trial of another serial killer, Stewart Wilken, known as The Boetie Boer and who killed at least 10 people, Micki was called as a witness to the defence, despite the accused being what she describes as “the worst sadist.” “The prosecution had enough evidence and didn’t need me so the defence called me - I think to give the judge a fuller picture,” she recalls.
“My testimony as a psychologist has always got to be unbiased. He had low impulse control - he couldn’t control his rage. He raped and strangled his victims and then stabbed some of his already-dead bodies. Wilken was unusual in the fact that he had two different kinds of victim profiles - female prostitutes and young boys.
“He had a lot of anger due to childhood trauma - after being abandoned by his mother before he turned two - and then being sexually and emotionally abused at various foster homes and institutions. He also killed his own daughter and a neighbour’s son.“
All serial killers have one thing in common, says Micki - a deep-seated psychological motive to kill. She says: “I see serial killers as normal people doing horrible things, capable of the most heinous acts - they are not mentally ill. When I met them, I saw how ordinary they were. They are not monsters. They kill due to an inferiority complex, which they compensate for by taking a life and feeling like God.”
Stewart Wilken aka Boetie Boer (https://joandelahaye.com/2012/09/12/boetie-boer/)
The Saloon Killer Velaphi Ndlangamandla, who was one of the murderers caught by Micki's profiling (https://www.encyklopedievrahu.cz/clanky/velaphi-ndlangamandla.html)Born in Pretoria, the daughter of a university chancellor, Micki - now known as the female mindhunter - says her own childhood was a happy one. She spent several years working as a journalist and living in Cape Town with her then-husband when she decided to move back to study psychology.
It was at her professor’s suggestion that she completed her doctorate degree with the thesis: A psycho-analytical approach to serial killers. This led to her police role working as South Africa’s first psychological profiler, leading training courses for detectives and setting up an Investigative Psych Unit.
Her marriage ended soon after she joined the police as she describes finding her life’s calling. She says: “I was very naive when I started - I remember on my first day on the job, I arrived in a mini skirt, stockings and high heels!” she laughs, “and there was some hostility - the police commanders found it very difficult to deal with me. But when they saw the results of what I was doing, their attitudes changed.”
The job took its toll, and she left the force in 2000 suffering from PTSD and went on to write several books. Living in Mauritius has been a “tranquil, healing paradise.” Micki welcomes the rise of armchair detectives and interest in true crime - it is why she set up her own YouTube channel, Profiler on Record.
She reveals: “With the Station Strangler, Simons’s profile was released to the public - this was unusual, but we needed the community’s help, and we got it. A nurse saw the profile and called us.
Charlotte Hope as Micki in the show (Photography by Joe Alblas | African Photo Productions)“She recognised the profile as fitting one of the regular patients who claimed he had depression and regularly checked in at the clinic she worked at and then would quietly leave and return - we think in a bid to create an alibi. Thanks to the nurse’s tip-off, police started following him, and they arrested Simons.”
Last year - almost 30 years later - Micki gave a talk in Cape Town and told the story about the nurse. She recalls: “A lady raised her hand in the audience and said that was her! We gave her a round of applause. I told her she was a true hero.
“Ordinary people, men and women, can make a difference, and they do all the time. It’s really important the public understand if you know something or think you do call the police - it might just be the one piece of the puzzle they need.”
Few serial killers can outrun the female Mindhunter Micki Pistorius. She knows how they think....which is why this is just a few of the 35 serial killers, her spot-on psychological profiles have helped catch.
Cedric Maake
Known as The Wemmer Pan Killer after the area of Johnnesberg where he would target his victims between 1996 and 1997. Maake was then charged with 27 murders but was suspected of killing many more. He was sentenced to 1340 years behind bars also for 26 attempted murders and 14 rapes. Maake bludgened people to death that were walking home alone with rocks, and also killed couples, shooting the men and raping the women.
Velaphi Ndlangamandla
A robber and serial killer, Ndlangamandla was responsible for murdering 19 people between April and September 1998 in Mpumalanga. He broke into houses, as well as stealing items such as ammunition, radios, jewellery, clothing, cash and food. He was known as The Saloon Killer, because he used a .22 Anschütz rifle which he stole, that is colloquially known as a “saloon”.
Norman Afzal Simons
Also known as “The Station Strangler” because he lured his victims away from train stations. He was convicted of the rape and murder of 10-year-old Elroy van Rooyen, but he is suspected to have been responsible for 22 child murders from 1986–1994. He is currently serving his 35-year sentence.
Stewart Wilken
This serial killer was known as “The Boetie Boer” and considered highly unusual on account of the fact his victims were both female prostitutes and young boys. Among his 10 victims was also his adolescent daughter, Wuane. He was active in Port Elizabeth, on the east coast of South Africa from 1990 to 1997, and is serving seven life sentences.
Sipho Thwala
Active from 1996 to 1997, Thwala was eventually convicted of the murder of 16 women and 10 rapes. His M.O was luring women through the sugarcane fields of Mount Edgecombe near the town of Phoenix with the trick of offering domestic workers in a nearby hotel. He relied on the bodies in the field being burned by farmers but was caught when his DNA was found on a victim before this could happen. He is currently in jail in Pretoria, sentenced to 506 years.
Moses Sithole
This killer was responsible for the ABC murders - named as such because they began in Atteridgeville, continued in Boksburg and finished in Cleveland, South Africa. He was sentenced to 2,410 years imprisonment in Mangaung Correctional Centre in Bloemfontein for killing at least 37 women and one toddler between July 1994 and November 1995.
David Selepe
Selepe was also linked to the ABC murders and apparently confessed to killing 15 women in Johannesburg. However he refused to sign a confession and was shot dead in December 1994 by police while trying to escape from them.
David Mmbengwa
From 1996 to 1998 this killer stalked the streets in Thohoyandou, Limpopo until he was jailed for killing seven people – including an agricultural department official and two policemen – in the Thohoyandou area. While he started his spree with murders framed as robberies, many of his victims were couples he found making love in their cars.
Catch Me A Killer series starts Tues 5th March 5 on Alibi. After each episode, people can go to the YouTube series, Micki Pistorius Profiler on Record – and see Micki personally discuss it.
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