Hours after police finished processing the scene where a woman’s body was discovered in a central Johannesburg warehouse last weekend, the father of the man taken into custody for allegedly killing her stumbled across a second body.
The gruesome find prompted a search of the premises by tenants and security guards, during which four more bodies were discovered.
The grisly search revealed one body hidden in a wheelie bin, two in the back of abandoned vans, one under plastic sheeting and another stuffed into a cavity of what is believed to be an old steel industrial kitchen unit or some kind of air vent.
In total six bodies were found — five of them after police had processed the initial scene and left.
A paramedic at the scene said one of the victims had been pregnant
This is according to a tenant in the building, who was called to the site in Selby last Sunday morning after the initial body was found. He told the Sunday Times a paramedic at the scene said one of the victims had been pregnant.
The tenant, who manages a warehousing business for online retailers, gave the Sunday Times a blow-by-blow account of how he, security guards, the father of the suspect and one remaining detective made the horrific discoveries.
He took the Sunday Times on a tour of the premises, pointing out where the bodies were found. He asked that his name be withheld.
“At just after 8am last Sunday our caretaker called me. He had brought his car in to wash it. His four-year-old son was with him.
“You have to walk up a ramp to gain access to the building. The caretaker walked up and opened the main door. He told me he was immediately overpowered by the stench. It seemed to emanate from the third of three rooms next to the entrance,” the tenant said.
“The third room has a room inside it. That is where he found the victim. When he switched on his cellphone light, he and his son simultaneously saw the woman and the boy grabbed him by his trouser leg.”
The tenant said the smell of death had begun to bother him and his colleagues on Friday.
“We have had similar smells in the building before, but it always turned out to be a dead cat or rat.
“On Friday, before leaving work, I had looked into the third room through the window. I saw nothing. The room was dark. Our colleagues had their windows open, so most of the smell dissipated. We closed everything up and it remained closed in this heat until the caretaker opened the door on Sunday.”
He said that after finding the woman, the caretaker and his son rushed outside and informed the two security guards.
“The guards confirmed the find and called me to tell me there was a dead person in our building,” the tenant said.
They met him at the gate.
“The other tenant in the building has a panel-beating business. When I arrived, he had already come and gone. The guards told me he had left with the caretaker and the security supervisor to fetch his 20-year-old son in Fordsburg — the father and son do not live together.
“At that point we already suspected his son. The guards told me he often came to the building, coming and going at strange hours with women and sometimes alone,” the tenant said.
“On their way back, they stopped at the Johannesburg Central Police Station to report the dead body.”
He said uniformed police officers arrived at “about 11.30am” to question the son and take a statement from the caretaker.
“They found a glass tik-pipe on the boy when they searched him.
“The boy’s father was visibly shocked, even angry. He questioned his son harshly in front of the police and asked ‘how long have you been smoking drugs’ and ‘who is this woman?’ It was clear he was as shocked as the rest of us.
“The ambulance arrived at about noon to certify the woman dead. After the paramedic was done, he told us the woman had been pregnant.”
Because they had only found one body at that time, they only checked the footage of a specific CCTV camera.
“The detectives arrived somewhere between 4pm and 5pm. They questioned the son and their forensic investigators took over the room. When they were finished, they handed the scene back to us and we decided to clean the room where the woman was found,” the tenant said.
“We used detergents. The smell was terrible and still overpowering in that room. At about 4pm the suspect’s father needed to use the toilet but felt uncomfortable using the loo on the floor where the body was found, so he decided to use an outside toilet at the back of our building, down another ramp.
“As he walked down the ramp, the smell hit him again and he heard flies buzzing. He saw a piece of scrap metal — it looks like a part of an industrial kitchen or air venting — and when he glanced through a hole into it, he saw another body. This one was starting to decompose but if you knew the woman you would have still recognised her.”
The father of the suspect ran up the ramp and called the others.
“There was still one SAPS detective on site, finishing up the work on the original crime scene. He was about to leave when we stopped him and showed him the body. Then we started searching further.”
Two broken-down vans were parked in the same outdoor passageway, next to the ramp where the next body was found.
“The detective, myself, the father of the suspect, the two guards and their supervisor started walking down the passageway where the two vans were parked.
“We saw what looked like clear sheeting. Again, the stench and the buzzing of flies drew us to it. Wrapped in the plastic was another dead woman,” the tenant said.
“A few steps further, we saw a green wheelie bin with paint tins stacked around it. One of the others used a stick to lift the lid. Inside was another body, this time badly decomposed. I will never forget the sight of the maggots on the body.
“The two vans have been parked there from before we started renting our space about a year ago. They have always been unlocked, but when we tried the handles, we realised they were locked.”
The father of the suspect broke open the two vans’ back doors with a hammer and a chisel.
“Inside each van we found another dead body. That brought the number of victims to six adult women, but it is seven if you count the unborn child,” the tenant said.
He said the search took about 30 minutes.
“All the victims I saw had their hands and feet tied with nylon rope. One of the bodies was basically only skeletal remains.” He said the cause of death was not visibly clear.
The police detective called their new discoveries in.
The police later took the CCTV hard drive, but the tenant watched the footage with them.
“On the footage of the Sunday a week before the victims were found, we saw the suspect arriving at 6pm in a white Hyundai H100,” the tenant said.
“A woman who appeared to be the same woman whose body was first discovered, was sitting next to him. They drove up the ramp and he jumped out to close the rolling shutter before the victim also exits the vehicle. They then enter the room where she was found and we never see her alive again.
“About 45 minutes later we see the suspect leaving the room. At around midnight he came back, but shortly thereafter load-shedding kicked in and the footage stopped.
“He is such a quiet person. Our relationship was limited to greeting each other in passing, but he always gave the impression that he couldn’t hurt a fly.
“It felt unreal seeing these bodies in the same area where all of us work every day. And seeing someone in that state changes you. You will keep that with you forever. I will never forget that smell or the sight of the maggots.”
The suspect appeared at the Johannesburg magistrate’s court on Tuesday, charged with murder.
The NPA said he could not be identified until an identity parade had been held.
NPA spokesperson for Gauteng Phindi Mjonondwane said: “Although six bodies were discovered, the accused is charged with one count of murder, as evidence contained in the docket currently links the accused to one of the female bodies. The NPA gave instructions for further investigations to be conducted regarding the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the rest of the women who were discovered,” Mjonondwane said.
None of the victims have been identified. They are believed to have been sex workers in the area.
Police spokesperson Brig Brenda Muridili this week confirmed the suspect was arrested on a charge of rape last year, but later released.
“The suspect was arrested for rape in June 2021 and in February 2022 the victim withdrew the case. The accused was released in April 2022,” she said.
According to the tenant, the suspect had access to vehicles in his father’s panel-beating workshop.
“They have to move the vehicles often in the course of their business, so all the keys were left in the vehicles’ ignitions. The suspect also had keys to the premises and a remote for the gate,” he said.
Earlier this week, the suspect’s father told the SABC the family was shocked.
“I feel like I want to disown him. I don’t want anyone to attach him to me because things like that are far away from me, “ he told the broadcaster.
“I have supported him enough. I have done my job. I was doing that to avoid this, but he decided to do this. I mean he has to suffer ... you reap what you sow. What is left for him is to explain and tell the world why he did that.”
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