Village of Tholeni/AFP
CAPE TOWN, Sep 3 – A South African court on Tuesday jailed a serial killer to 25 life terms after he confessed to murdering 20 women and children and six rapes.
Bulelani Mabhayi was convicted of murdering his victims with an axe or cleaver after breaking into their homes in a rural Eastern Cape village, in a three year killing spree from 2007.
His oldest murder victim was a 79 year old woman and the youngest was a 14 month old baby.
“He confessed to everything that we charged him with,” said Luxolo Tyali, spokesman for South Africa’s National Prosecuting Authority.
“We charged him with 20 counts of murder, six counts of rape, and 10 counts of house breaking with intent to commit murder and rape.”
The serial killings were “the worst of its kind” in the Eastern Cape, said Tyali, who said Mabhayi had targeted homes that had no men.
The killings sparked so much fear that the village’s elderly women and their grandchildren started to gather in one place to sleep.
Mabhayi was given life sentences for each of the murders and for five of the rapes in the High Court sitting in Butterworth.
He also received 10 years for the additional rape and five years for the 10 counts of housebreaking which will run concurrently.
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