The discovery of the bodies of at least 11 women in and around Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg, has intensified fears over South Africa’s long-running crisis of gender-based violence and femicide. Although police have not confirmed that a serial killer is operating in the area, the number and apparent similarities of some of the cases have raised concerns about a possible wider pattern.
Most of the victims were women in their 20s and 30s, including women who were reportedly exercising or running. Their bodies were discovered in open spaces, alongside roads and near waterways, particularly around Kempton Park and Tembisa. Several victims reportedly showed severe signs of violence, while some were found partially clothed, restrained or badly injured.
South African Police Service investigators, including the Investigative Psychology Unit, are examining if the deaths are connected. However, Police have stressed that similarities between cases do not constitute proof that one person or group is responsible.
Three people have been arrested in connection with individual cases, including the killing of Jabulile Ntimba. Investigators have indicated that some deaths may have resulted from personal or relationship disputes. It remains unclear if any of those arrests are connected to the wider cluster of killings. Probably a gendered crisis that is unconnected to the signature of a serial killer.
The uncertainty over whether a serial killer is involved, has become only one dimension of a much larger social crisis. To many of South African women, the killings have reinforced an already familiar reality that ordinary activities such as walking, exercising, travelling home or meeting someone somewhere for a social connect, can carry an acute sense of vulnerability.
The gender dimension is significant. The victims were women, and the reported circumstances of several deaths, have prompted renewed discussion about femicide, the killing of women because of, or in circumstances strongly associated with gender-based violence. Nonetheless, investigators must establish the motive and circumstances of each death, than automatically attributing every killing to a single gender-based pattern. This clarity matters because treating the cases simply as the work of a serial killer, could obscure other forms of violence against women, including intimate-partner violence, sexual violence and attacks arising from personal disputes.
But from the society’s response, the killings have also exposed the social consequences of persistent insecurity. Running exercise groups and community organisations, have reportedly changed routines, with some women avoiding solitary exercise, travelling in groups and adopting additional personal-safety measures. Such precautions may reduce individual exposure to danger, but they also impose a social cost.
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