In the mid-1990s, just as South Africa was learning to breathe again, just as it was rising from decades of apartheid, a different darkness was taking root. It crept through train stations and alleys, lingered in job recruitment centers and parks. It carried itself in a soft-spoken voice, a polite smile, and a kind offer of employment. This darkness had a name—Moses Sithole.
By the time the police and press caught up, Sithole had already earned himself a monstrous nickname. The ABC Killer, they called him. At first, the letters were geographic—Atteridgeville, Boksburg, Cleveland—the areas where the bodies were found. But soon, the press and public imbued those letters with a crueler meaning: the beginning of the alphabet, the basics of horror. A, B, C—as easy as luring a woman with a lie.
He was soft-spoken, even charming. Some called him handsome, with a lean, muscular frame and a clean, composed demeanor. To many struggling women in the townships of Gauteng, he looked like opportunity. He walked with purpose, dressed well, and spoke with authority. He introduced himself as someone from a non-profit agency helping young women find employment. Sometimes, he claimed he worked with a children’s charity. Always, the pitch was the same—he had a job, or knew someone who did. He could help. All he needed was a walk, a conversation, a bit of trust.
Then they would vanish.
The disappearances began quietly. South Africa had a sky-high murder rate. Black women, especially in impoverished areas, were often victims of violence that barely registered in the national conversation. But as 1994 turned to 1995, the pattern became impossible to ignore. In open fields, along dirt paths and vacant lots, women were turning up dead—naked from the waist down, hands tied behind their backs with their own underwear, bludgeoned, and strangled with their own clothing.
The police were finding the bodies in clusters. Some had been left to rot in the grass, decomposing in the sun. Others were so fresh they were still bleeding. But it was the state of the corpses that sent a chill down even the most seasoned detectives’ spines. These weren’t just murders. They were displays. Signatures. Each woman was posed. Each woman had been brutalized in nearly the exact same way. Whoever was doing this had a routine. A ritual.
Detectives in Boksburg, Atteridgeville, and Cleveland didn’t initially connect the dots. Different precincts, limited resources, and chaotic record-keeping meant the killer had time. Time to roam. Time to refine.
He was methodical. He would strike in batches, sometimes murdering two or three women in a week. After each kill, he would lie low. Then, just when the case seemed to be cooling, he’d strike again.
And the victims kept appearing.
They were all young black women. Some teenagers. Most had been searching for work. They were daughters, sisters, single mothers. A few had been reported missing days before their bodies were discovered. Others had been lost for weeks. Many were only identified by dental records or the desperate recognition of clothing remnants by family members. The number climbed steadily—first a dozen, then two dozen. Then thirty. Police began to suspect they were dealing with the worst serial killer in South African history.
In September 1995, a field near Benoni yielded a scene so gruesome it looked like something out of a war zone. Investigators found the decomposing remains of ten women, all within walking distance of one another. Most had been murdered months apart, but the killer had kept returning to the same field. Returning to his cemetery. The area reeked of death. Flies clung to the air. Journalists who arrived at the scene vomited. Even hardened police officers gagged as they worked.
The case broke open not with a criminal genius’ mistake, but with an act of journalism and the persistence of an anonymous woman. A reporter from The Star newspaper received a call in September 1995 from someone claiming to be the killer. The man on the phone was eerily calm. He blamed women. Said they were liars. Said he was doing the country a favor. He wanted to explain himself.
The journalist listened carefully, asked questions. The man spoke in a deliberate, clipped English. His tone never cracked. Eventually, the call was traced. The voice belonged to Moses Sithole, a man already on police radar. But by the time authorities moved in, he was gone.
The manhunt was short but frantic. Authorities issued a nationwide alert. Sithole was declared armed and dangerous. He was a ticking bomb. They feared he would kill again.
They were right.
He stabbed his own brother in a fit of rage. Then, as if to complete his descent into madness, he attacked a police officer with an axe during his arrest in October 1995. Officers shot him in the leg and stomach. Even in pain, he fought back. But the capture was done. The nightmare had a face.
Born in Vosloorus in 1964, Moses Sithole was one of five children. His early life was steeped in instability. When his father died, his mother abandoned the family. He ended up in an orphanage where, according to later interviews, he was abused. He ran away. Lived on the streets. Committed petty crimes.
In 1987, he was convicted of rape. The woman he assaulted worked with him at a Carlton Centre advertising company. He served six years in prison. During his trial, he cried. Pleaded for mercy. Told the court he was remorseful. But prison didn’t reform him. It sharpened him. Hardened him.
When he was released, he put on a mask of normalcy. He started an “employment agency” called Youth Against Human Abuse. There was no office. No staff. Just Moses and his lies. From that front, he launched one of the most sadistic killing sprees in modern history.
The trial began in 1997 and unfolded like a horror novel. He was charged with 38 murders, 40 rapes, and six counts of robbery. Each victim was named. Their stories were told in court—stories of vanished daughters, broken mothers, ruined lives. Photos of the bodies were shown. Some jurors wept. The presiding judge, David Curlewis, called the crimes “the worst in South African legal history.”
Sithole showed little remorse. In interviews, he blamed women for his actions. Claimed he had a disease. Said he was provoked. His defense team struggled to present any credible case. The evidence was overwhelming—DNA, confessions, survivor testimony, eyewitness accounts.
One young woman had escaped him. She testified that Sithole had taken her to a field, told her to undress, then attacked. She screamed. Fought. Bit his hand. Managed to break free. Her screams alerted nearby workers who chased him off. She survived. Barely. Her account matched the method of many of the killings.
Sithole had a signature. He would tie his victims’ hands behind their backs with their underwear or shoelaces. He would sexually assault them. Then strangle them with their own clothing. Some were strangled with belts, bras, or pantyhose. He left them face down, often in secluded fields or abandoned lots.
It took months to catalogue the evidence. The trial transcripts ran over 1,500 pages. And still, the true number of victims remained uncertain. Some police believed there were at least 10 more. Possibly double. Sithole had kept no records. His only ledger was the land.
The sentence came swiftly—2,410 years. He was given 50 years per murder, 12 years per rape, and five years per robbery. He would be eligible for parole after 930 years.
Because South Africa had abolished the death penalty in 1995, execution was off the table. But Judge Curlewis made it clear—Sithole would die in prison.
He now serves his time in solitary confinement at Kgosi Mampuru II Correctional Centre in Pretoria. Authorities feared other inmates would kill him. Or worse, celebrate him.
To this day, Moses Sithole is rarely spoken of. The country, eager to move forward from its traumatic past, buries his name alongside its apartheid memories. But the women he murdered are not forgotten. Their families remember. The fields remember. And the darkness that he brought—quiet, calculated, cold—lingers in the corners of South Africa’s psyche.
There are crimes that scar a nation. Sithole’s wasn’t just a scar—it was a carving. A brutal etching into the fragile skin of a country trying to heal. And behind that wound is a face, forever locked away, whose voice once said softly, “I can help you find a job.”
It was never a job.
It was always a trap.