On the Devil's Trail | How I hunted down the Krugersdorp killers

The killing spree started in 2012. Eleven people had been brutally murdered by a group calling themselves Electus per Deus, but four years later no arrests had been made. In 2016 Capt Ben “Bliksem” Booysen took on the case and made headlines when he arrested Cecilia Steyn, the mastermind behind the heinous killings, along with five accomplices. 

Written in collaboration with Sunday Times journalist Nicki Gules, the book  details shocking police incompetence while exposing sensational new information around the twisted tale that kept the nation on edge for a decade. 

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Cecilia Steyn — The mastermind and ring leader of Electus per Deus. She turned several Christians into murderers after she made them believe she was a witch who needed protection from Satanists. She used tales of demonic attacks and possession to drive her foot soldiers to execute murders.

Zak Valentine — Murderer and Steyn’s lover. He fabricated his own death in a car accident in an insurance fraud. The body of a burnt victim found in the wreckage was believed to be him. Seven months after the “tragedy” he appeared in the flesh in the Krugersdorp magistrate’s court facing a fraud charge involving millions of rand.

Mikeila Valentine — A cult member and Zak’s wife. She was found in her bed with her throat slit in October 2012 after she become disillusioned with the group's activities. 

Marinda Steyn — No relation to Cecilia, a cult member and convicted murderer. She described killing Mikeila: “I told her, 'Pray, I am going to kill you now.' Then she started praying and then I killed her,” Steyn told the Johannesburg high court. 

Christelle Booysen —  Capt Ben “Bliksem” Booysen’s wife and a fellow cop.

It was a Friday afternoon, on 29 July 2016, almost a month after

Zak’s arrest, when Cecilia Steyn was brought into the police station. I

wasn’t there but I saw the footage. Cecilia clearly didn’t take what was

happening seriously — she was fooling around the whole time while the

officers were trying to take pictures of her, making bunny-ear signs with

her fingers. She kept doing stupid things like pulling two-finger victory

signs and making jokes . The police officers sent me all the photos and I

thought: “What the f*** is this?”

I arrived at the Krugersdorp Police Station the following morning. I

brought Christelle with me and we seated ourselves at the table in the

detectives’ boardroom, ready to take Cecilia and Marinda’s warning

statements — a legal process whereby you allow a suspect to give you

their side of the story and inform them of their rights. Whenever I

questioned a woman suspect on a weekend, outside normal office hours

when there is usually a policewoman available, I always took my wife

with me. Also, on the day, Lieutenant Colonel Verna van Staden, who

had been a member of Brigadier Manie Victor’s Appointment Murders

task team, was on hand to bring them up from the cells.

First she brought in Cecilia.

Cecilia hobbled in with this extremely large, heavy-looking oxygen

tank. She appeared to stumble along, acting out of breath and disabled,

as she made her way to a chair at the boardroom table. When she sat

down, she placed the oxygen cylinder on the floor next to her, and so my

first impression was that she must be very ill. Her thinning hair made her

look like a cancer patient. I wondered what the hell was wrong with this

woman and why the “dead” Zak had left all his money to her. Cecilia was

extremely friendly and didn’t behave at all like she had just been arrested.

She acted as though she was visiting friends for tea.

After standing up to greet her, I sat down and said, “I’m Captain

Booysen. I’m going to take your warning statement. I’m here to hear

your explanation of the charges, about Zak Valentine and how you came

to be named as the beneficiary of all his money.”

Then she started wheezing loudly — it appeared as if she was battling

to breathe.

Christelle quickly said to Verna, “Put on the oxygen, give her some

oxygen!”

Cecilia then put on the oxygen mask and Verna opened the cylinder

tap and immediately Cecilia began breathing easier, with her hand over

her mask, clutching at it like a person saved from the brink of suffocation.

But soon Christelle started kicking me under the table. With her eyes,

she directed me to look at the oxygen bottle on the floor. I noticed that

the pipe attached to the mask was not connected to the oxygen cylinder!

I said nothing. I just feigned sympathy and asked her, “Are you better

now? Are you breathing better?” to which she replied, still clutching the

mask to her face, “Ja, no, much better, thank you. I am breathing much

better now, much better now.”

Verna then got up and walked out. I continued completing the

warning statement, asking, “Have you been assaulted? Are you having

medical treatment?”

The crime-scene photos I had been shown of a naked Mikeila

appeared to show that she had semen between her legs. I don’t know

why I mentioned this, but I decided to ask Cecilia: “Do you know that

Zak had sex with his wife on the day that she was killed?”

Cecilia literally flipped. She became a completely different person from

the friendly woman who had walked into the detectives’ boardroom a

few minutes earlier. She got this vicious look in her eyes and spat: “No!

He will never sleep with his wife!”

Christelle then asked her, “But why wouldn’t he sleep with his wife?

Was there a problem?”

Cecilia was furious. Before she answered that question, Verna came

back into the room and Cecilia flipped back to “normal”.

That’s the only time that I saw a flash of the real Cecilia. The anger in

her eyes, the hatred. How dare I say that Zak had slept with his wife on

the day Mikeila was murdered? The warning lights started flashing for

me and I thought, “Something is brewing here; there is much more to

this story. Something is very, very wrong.”

Cecilia refused to answer any more questions. Verna showed her where

on the statement she should sign. She then signed it and walked out with

Verna, back to the cells.

Later on it would emerge that Zak and Cecilia believed they should

be together and that they were destined by God to become a couple.

When I asked Zak what was supposed to happen to Cecilia’s husband,

Dries, to allow them to be together, he said that God would make a

plan. Photographs I subsequently found of Electus per Deus members

posing for pictures at weddings and other occasions, showed the physical

distance between Zak and Mikeila. Zak was always in the back row,

behind Cecilia in the middle, touching her, while Mikeila, his wife, was

several people away on the edges of the image.

But Zak also knew how to play the bereaved widower. Exactly two

years before his arrest, Zak sent an email to Mikeila’s sister declining an

invitation to her wedding.

I’m sorry but I am not going to make it. I know it’s almost two years since she

passed away and a person should have healed and processed it by now but it

feels like it is hitting me the hardest now. I never dealt with it and tried for

one or another reason to be strong, but now it feels like everything is imploding.

My health, my work, my life ... feels like I don’t have anything left to live for.

I am no longer the Zak that you knew, I don’t want to just come to your

wedding and put on a happy face, except that it will be difficult for me and

I don’t want to bring any negativity to your wedding. I know you associate

me with your sister and I remind you of her, this is one day where all the

attention must just be on you and if I was there, I would make your mom,

your dad, and all the other family think about Mikeila which wouldn’t

be right. I AM SORRY BUT I AM NOT GOING TO STEAL YOUR

LIMELIGHT! Because without intending to, it will happen, Mikeila is

in your heart and I know she will smile her unique Mikeila smile when

you walk down the aisle.

Best of luck, sister, and may you have an awesome day, you will be in my

thoughts. 

I love you very much.

Xx

What a liar. 

• On the Devil's Trail: How I hunted down the Krugersdorp Killers, Melinda Ferguson Books, R224.