‘Everything is scary’: 9 bodies and a city on edge as women ask when the killing will stop - TimesLIVE

The discovery of the bodies of nine women in Ekurhuleni has left more than a trail of crime scenes. It has women checking over their shoulders, changing routines and wondering who they can trust.

As police work to establish what happened — hunt for th e perpetrator or perpetrators— psychologists, researchers and crime experts say the effects extend far beyond the immediate horror of the deaths.

For Babalwa Mbexe, who lives near the R21, where several of the bodies were found, deep fear is constant.

“I’m a sensible adult, so I’m used to sharing my location when necessary. But suddenly I don’t want to go out by myself anymore. I want people with me. The anxiety, depression, panic attacks, always looking behind you, around you, [being] suddenly dependent on others to guard you,” she said.

Her fear has extended to her 15-year-old daughter, who walks to school.

Suddenly everything is scary. The car guard you see every day has become someone you don’t trust because he could be a killer

“I cannot even allow her to walk to church that’s just up the road, because it goes past a patch of open veld. This week I found a knife in her bedroom, and she said, ‘Mom, it’s because we don’t know who it is. It could be anyone, even a person we let in our home.’

“Suddenly everything is scary. The car guard you see every day has become someone you don’t trust because he could be a killer.”

The Human Sciences Research Council’s first national gender-based violence study found that 35.5% of women aged 18 and older — just more than one in three — had experienced physical and/or sexual violence during their lifetime.

Crime generally has been a defining issue for Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi, who unveiled an ambitious crime-fighting plan after taking office in 2022. It included thousands of crime-prevention wardens, CCTV cameras, drones, helicopters and e-panic buttons. In 2023 Lesufi said the plan would include 180 drones and six helicopters.

But parts of the programme have faced serious implementation and legal questions. In October 2025 the public protector found that the establishment, appointment and deployment of Gauteng’s crime prevention wardens had been irregular and lacked an appropriate empowering legal framework. The provincial government said the irregularity had since been adressed.

Lesufi did not respond to queries about the province’s crime-fighting plan as the body count rose.

(Nolo Moima) For the women living closest to the crime scenes, however, the question is less about technology and more immediate, as they ask how safe they are and why it took so many murders before warnings were issued.

In Rhodesfield, Kempton Park, where the body of 38-year-old Elizabeth “Tsontso” Moselakgomo was discovered behind a hotel on September 12, fear has gripped the community. Many women have changed their daily routines, organising themselves into groups and relying on male companions to walk them through the neighbourhood as they navigate streets they no longer consider safe.

On Friday the neighbourhood taxi rank, normally a hive of activity, was eerily deserted.

Taxi driver Vusi Khumalo said he had noticed a significant decline in passengers. “Ever since her body was found, there have been fewer trips to popular places in town. Now I stay at the rank for more than four hours, but previously my taxi used to fill up in less than 30 minutes,” he said.

Khumalo said the change is particularly noticeable among women who previously travelled alone. “People are scared. You can see it in the way they move around. Some passengers now ask to be dropped closer to their homes because they do not want to walk long distances alone.”

For residents such as Naledi Sithole, the fear has changed even the simplest daily errands. “My husband comes back from work at around 2pm, so if I want to go out and do my hair, I wait until he is back home so that he can accompany me,” she said.

“It is not that we want to live like this. We are just scared. You hear these stories and you start thinking about what could happen to you when you are walking alone.”

We stopped doing proper profiling in the SAPS quite a few years ago, because it’s a very long and difficult process.”

Another resident, Eva Morgan, a passionate runner, said she has stopped running with her female-only running club because members are increasingly concerned about their safety.

“It is a precautionary stance. Police visibility is a problem in the area, so we decided to stop until a few male runners accept our invitations,” she said. “We used to run without thinking twice. Now every bush, every quiet road and every person behind you makes you think twice.”

Moselakgomo, 38, was a runner who went missing on September 9 after leaving home for an afternoon jog. Her death is part of the ongoing police investigation into the series of murders of women in and around Ekurhuleni.

Police have confirmed that nine women’s bodies have been found over the past 10 weeks. A specialised multidisciplinary task team is investigating the cases and whether there are links between them.

In Thembisa, resident Mpho Moroka said the killings have frightened her, but she refused to allow the fear to dictate her life.

“I must make sure that my loved ones have my location at all times, and I also make sure that I don’t walk alone in areas where there are a lot of bushes or trees,” she said. “I still go out and do the things I need to do, but I am more careful now. I look around me and I make sure people know where I am.”

Where the bodies were found (Nolo Moima) Several crime and profiling experts have urged investigators to examine the deaths together, though police have been careful not to conclude that they were committed by one person.

Lt-Col Elmarie Myburgh, who headed the SAPS’s investigative psychology section until taking early retirement this year, said she believed the murders should be investigated as though perpetrated by a serial killer.

“When you investigate a string of dockets together, the case gets automatic priority treatment, and detectives can link things,” she said. “A piece of information from case one might be helpful and add to something discovered in case five, which will maybe have a bearing on something in case three, for example.”

Myburgh said the SAPS had moved away from traditional criminal profiling towards linkage analysis — examining behaviour and similarities across cases — because it was quicker and could be useful where there was little forensic evidence.

“We stopped doing proper profiling in the SAPS quite a few years ago, because it’s a very long and difficult process.”

She said publicly available information suggested the possibility of a serial killer should be taken seriously, while warning that the number of bodies could eventually prove higher if older unsolved cases were examined.

She also criticised the amount of detail being made public about the murders. “I was horrified to hear that one of the victims had been stabbed and her throat slit, because if that is the killer’s modus operandi, he might just go and change his behaviour.”

The Pink Ladies’ Jacqui Thomas said copycat killings were another concern. “We see it happen when there have been murders in an area. Other perpetrators will use the same methods and then dump the bodies to obfuscate the investigation,” she said.

Criminal profiler Micki Pistorius, who pioneered criminal psychological profiling within SAPS in 1994, said the similarities warranted close scrutiny. “There may be different killers, but an experienced detective will be able to tell, even by looking at the psychological aspects,” she said.

Pistorius said the police should be commended for establishing a task team, issuing warnings to the public and putting up a large reward. She encourages anyone with information to come forward.

“It breaks my heart. I’ve been receiving messages on LinkedIn from strangers; people I don’t know have been contacting me. One woman said, ‘Please come home, we’re scared.’”

Forensic scientist David Klatzow believes an independent forensic team should be brought in to work alongside investigators. “What the Madlanga commission has shown us about the SAPS in its current state is that it is impossible to get a clean drink of water when you are drawing from a septic tank,” he said.

For now, investigators are under pressure to identify the victims, establish how they died and determine which cases are connected, with the risk of more murders until the perpetrator or perpetrators are apprehended.

For women like Mbexe, the investigation needs to move fast. Her daughter’s knife is evidence that the terror has already travelled from the crime scenes into homes and ordinary lives.

National outrage over the murders comes amid the arrest of a suspected serial rapist in KwaZulu-Natal on Thursday.

Police said the 46-year-old allegedly terrorised at least 14 women in Cato Manor in Durban and two in Pietermaritzburg since 2014. He followed them home from taverns, attacked them at night and, in some instances, broke into their homes armed with a knife.