South African police have discovered a tenth woman’s body in Ekurhuleni, east of Johannesburg, as investigators examine whether a series of killings could be linked to a serial killer.
The latest victim was found at a cemetery in Tembisa on Saturday morning. Police said forensic investigators were gathering evidence at the scene, but authorities had not publicly released her identity.
A friend who had been with the woman at a bar the previous evening told national broadcaster SABC that she recognised her clothing when shown a photograph of the body.
“I don’t know what I’m going to say to her children,” she said.
Gauteng police commissioner Lieutenant General Tommy Mthombeni said it was too early to establish whether the latest death was connected to the previous killings.
However, he said similarities involving the victims and the circumstances of their deaths meant investigators could not rule out a serial killer. Police are also examining a killing in Soweto for possible links.
The discoveries have intensified public anger over violence against women and increased pressure on the government, less than a year after ministers declared gender-based violence a national disaster.
Bodies have been found since July, mostly in Kempton Park, near Tembisa. Many of the victims were young women, and almost all had suffered severe violence before their deaths.
Mthombeni said investigators were comparing patterns across the cases to establish whether the killings shared a perpetrator or perpetrators. Police have yet to confirm a connection between all the deaths.
Three men appeared in court earlier this week accused of involvement in one of the nine earlier Ekurhuleni killings. Investigators are seeking other people suspected of involvement in that case.
The deaths come against a backdrop of persistently high levels of violent crime in South Africa. Police recorded 5,427 murders between April and June this year.
The South African Human Rights Commission said last week that 569 women were killed during the same period, while another 1,052 survived attempted murder.
