Moses Sithole's Serial Killer

A.K.A.: "The ABC Murderer" - "The Gauteng Killer" Classification: Serial killer

Characteristics: Serial rapist

Number of victims: 38

Date of murders: 1994 - 1995

Date of arrest: October 18, 1995

Date of birth: November 17, 1964

Victims profile: Women

Method of murder: Ligature strangulation

Location: Pretoria/Gauteng, South Africa

Status: Sentenced to 50 years imprisonment for each of the 38 murders, 12 years imprisonment for each of the 40 rapes, and five years imprisonment for each of the six robberies. Since his sentences run consecutively, the total effective sentence is thus one of 2,410 years on December 5, 1997

Moses Sithole (November 17, 1964) is a South African serial killer who committed the "ABC Murders, so named because they began in Atteridgeville, continued in Boksburg and finished in Cleveland, a suburb of Johannesburg.

Early life

Sithole was born in Vosloorus, a poor neighbourhood of Boksburg in apartheid-era South Africa. When he was five, his father died, and his mother abandoned the family. Sithole and his siblings spent the next three years in an orphanage, where he later said they were mistreated. He ran away back to his mother, who sent him back to the orphanage. He eventually moved in with his older brother.

He began raping women in his twenties, claiming three victims before one finally testified against him. He was sent to prison, during which he himself was sexually assaulted by other prisoners. His murder spree began in 1994,