Unsolved Murders SA: A proudly South African true crime podcast
Welcome to Unsolved Murders SA, a podcast series where we will be delving into gruesome homicide investigations that, at the time of producing the episodes, were still open.
The objective of this series is to keep the stories of the forgotten alive and, hopefully, help spark a memory for anyone listening in with intimate knowledge of the cases.
The views, information, or opinions expressed in this series are solely those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of Swisher Post, its parent company and partners.
Some of the content featured in this series describes details of extreme violence. Therefore, viewers’ discretion is strongly advised.
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The most recent study of child murders in South Africa was published by the University of Cape Town’s Children Institute in 2017.
The research study accessed violent crimes committed against children aged 0 to 17 years, between 2013 and 2017, and according to quantitative data collected and analysed by Aislinn Delany & Katharine Hall, homicide was the second most common cause of death among children in South Africa, after respiratory tract infections.
In the 2016/17 calendar year, the child murder rate stood at 4.3 per 100 000 children, with the highest burden of homicide observed in the 15-to-17-year age group.
The study also found that homicide cases of children younger than 5 were more likely to be victims of child abuse, usually by someone they knew.
Reflecting on their findings, Delany and Hall concluded that “information on the relationship of the perpetrator(s) to the child and where these acts occur would provide a better understanding of the context of violence against children in South Africa.”
A background on Ramaphosa informal settlement
In 2010, Nobayethi Dube published a case study on Ramaphosa, two years after the informal settlement made national headlines over xenophobic violence that claimed lives and sowed further division in an ethnically segregated community.
The settlement was established in the advent of democracy in 1994. Outsiders from the predominantly mixed-raced Reiger Park community illegally occupied the area of land administered by Ekurhuleni Municipality’s Ward 42 and, years later, were joined by residents from Daveyton, others coming from as far out as the Eastern Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal (KZN).
The informal settlement was a melting pot of ethnic diversity. Different people from different cultures and backgrounds, with unique belief systems, gathered in this once-desolate stretch of land and built a community.
The area existed without legal access to electricity, water, ablution systems and recreational resources.
It wasn’t until 2004 that the South African government recognised the inhumane living conditions the people of Ramaphosa endured.
However, a mixture of corruption and maladministration only hampered service delivery issues in the region and by 2013, the informal settlement was largely derelict.
Apart from rotational power outages implemented by Eskom, South Africa’s electricity provider, Ramaphosa was synonymous with random, and at times, prolonged, power outages, water shortages, sewage spills and rampant crime.
But, for its locals, the settlement was a place of refuge for the down-trodden. For illegal immigrants from places like Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, it was a haven of opportunity.
Unsolved Murders SA: What happened to Siphamandla Madikane?
Siphamandla Madikane was 10 years old in 2013. At that age, Madikane had his entire life ahead of him.
For his single mother, Nokukhanya, Siphamandla was a beacon of his family’s future. His sister, Bongiwe Madikane, was 23 years olf at the time and her role was to provide auxiliary support to her mother in raising the young boy.
His family described him as a well-mannered and playful kid. His uncle Sibabalo, adored Siphamandla as “a bright boy and I was hoping he could make a difference in the family.”
Sunday 3 November 2013 was just like any other weekend for Nokukhanya. It was a relatively warm day and as it had become a norm at the time, there was no electricity in the area of Ramaphosa they lived in. t
She did not know it at the time but that Sunday morning and early afternoon were the final moments Nokukhanya spent with her son.
The house’s cooker needed paraffin and so, Nokukhanya and Siphamandla headed to a nearby shop to purchase a refill.
On their way, Siphamandla bumped into a group of friends. This was a common encounter and Nokukhanya thought nothing of it when she said yes to his pleas.
He wanted to stay behind and join his friends who were playing at a house near the shop.
When Nokukhanya turned and walked back home without her son, she had not fathomed that this would be their last encounter.
Hours rolled by and when Siphamandla had not returned home by 19:00, the mother knew something was amiss.
So, she went looking for her son at his friends’. Each boy Siphamandla had been playing with that day was at home by the time Nokukhanya came searching for her son, and they all shrugged, claiming to have no clue where the 10-year-old was.
Then, one of the boys revealed a crucial detail about the events that had transpired that day that gripped the Madikane family in fear.
According to the boy, whose identity was never made public, he and Siphamandla were playing with two other friends when an unknown man approached them.
The boy recalled that, at the time, the man had been watching them for a while.
He wanted one of the boys to accompany him to a nearby house and ask his girlfriend to come outside.
Three of the boys knew better than to entertain strangers. So, instinctively, they refused the man’s offer of R5.
However, Siphamandla could not resist the allure of a quick buck.
The boys told the Madikane family that the last time they had seen Siphamandla was when he’d walked off with the man towards the direction of a house they could not identify.
Immediately, Nokukhanya and her daughter Bongiwe raised the alarm bells.
It is important to note that Ramaphosa, a vastly stretched settlement with two extensions, had no basic services like a local clinic or a police station.
All municipal and administrative matters were handled by Reiger Park authorities and therefore, the police station was on the other side of the township.
Nokukhanya and Bongiwe contacted the police that evening. A search for the 10-year-old had yielded nothing and they hoped a team of officers would be deployed to assist.
There was no electricity in the region on that day and while it is unknown if this was due to loadshedding or a power failure, it can be reasonably assumed that the street lights – if they were installed at the time – were not working.
The family waited and shockingly, Reiger Park police never came.
This would be a hotly contested claim that, in the end, was proven to be true and resulted in a nationwide boycott against the police station.
Nomthandazo Vuma was a neighbour of the Madikanes at the time. Speaking in an interview with IOL News on 6 November 2013, she recalled how Nokukhanya arrived at her home on Monday at approximately 05:30 and the pair took a taxi to Reiger Park police station to report Siphamandla missing.
Nomthandazo remembered that Nokukhanya had complained about the police’s no-show the day before but this was never entertained.
Instead, according to the neighbour, “after opening the case, the police said they would follow us. We went back home and, together with the community, started looking for Siphamandla.”
At around 10:00, the community had already launched its search for the missing 10-year-old and, shockingly, Reiger Park police had yet to arrive and join the search party.
“At around 10am, when the police had still not arrived, we went again to the police station with the community,” Nomthandazo recalled.
It was only then, on the second visit, that Reiger Park’s station commander deployed one police officer and a sniffer dog to join the search.
The morning came and went with no progress made in tracking down Siphamandla.
Nathaniel Malehlo was a resident of Ramaphosa and lived a few kilometres away from the Madikanes.
That Monday afternoon, he was not aware of the community’s search party. He had no idea that a 10-year-old boy had gone missing.
With no ablution services available, Malehlo relied on a bushy area near his home to relieve himself.
At approximately 14:00, he made his way to the bushes and before he could get down to business, he stumbled across a horrific sighting that has haunted him ever since.
The legs of a small kid were sticking out of the bushes. Completely mortified, Malehlo ran to call for help.
He returned to the scene with two local men, who contacted police, reporting the discovery of a boy’s lifeless body.
Police, accompanied by the Madikanes, arrived at the bushy area and very quickly, it was determined that the body was that of missing Siphamandla.
His pants and underwear were pulled down to his ankles. He had a gaping wound on his neck and a sock stuffed in his mouth.
His body was partially burned too, and nearby, a used condom was found. This led police to believe that Siphamandla had been sexually assaulted before he was viciously killed.
Faced with immense pressure and backlash for their ineptitude, the Gauteng police department established a special homicide team of 36 experienced detectives to work on the case and close it swiftly.
At the time, the Reiger Park police had come under fire for the manner in which Siphamandla’s missing person report was handled.
A day after the gruesome discovery, Gauteng police spokesperson at the time Captain Tsekiso Mofokeng criticised Siphamandla’s family for only reporting the 10-year-old boy’s disappearance on Monday, a day after he was last seen alive.
This was obviously not the case and after an internal inquest, it was determined that the police had failed to respond to the mother’s calls for help on that Sunday evening.
The special task force had to pick up the slack and regain the community’s trust by closing in on the man responsible for brutally killing the young boy.
Political pressure was also exerted on the task force by the Ekurhuleni municipality. South Africa’s Presidency and State Security minister Mondli Gungubele was mayor of the metro at the time and, at every encounter with the media, he made it a point to shine a spotlight on the movements of the investigation.
“This is one of those incidents that sends shivers down his spine and he has called on the police in terms of finding the perpetrators and locking them up as soon as possible.” his office wrote in a statement at the time.
Gungubele was faced with pressures of his own. After all, Siphamandla’s death came a month into ongoing investigations into the brutal deaths of four children from Diepsloot, a township situated a little over 50km from Ramaphosa.
Zandile and Yonalisa Mali were cousins, aged two and three years old, respectively.
Their lifeless bodies were discovered in a public toilet cubicle,in Diepsloot, on the morning of Tuesday 15 October 2013.
The toddlers were reported missing on Saturday 12 October 2013. Eyewitnesses told police, at the time, that Zandile and Yonalisa were last seen walking with an unknown man.
Post mortem reports released later on in the investigation revealed that toddlers had been sexually assaulted before they were strangled to death, and later mutilated.
DNA samples taken from the toddlers’ private parts were tested against a number of suspects and a local man, Ntokozo Hadebe, was identified as a match.
His DNA also matched an ongoing child murder case from Diepsloot. Anelisa Mkhonto was a five-year-old girl, and just like Siphamandla and the Mali cousins, she too was last seen walking with an unknown man before she disappeared in September 2013.
Her mutilated body was found in a garbage bin days later. She too had been raped.
A day after horrific discovery of the Mali cousins, the bodies of two toddlers, aged one and three, were found on an open field in Katlehong, a little more than an hour’s drive from Diepsloot.
The children were discovered next to their mother, who was critically injured. It was later determined that their father was responsible for the heinous murders and thus, Ntokozo was never linked as a suspect.
Ntokozo was convicted of the murders of Anelisa and the Mali cousins a year later and sentenced to 15 years.
He was never linked to the death of Siphamandla, despite the chilling similarities in the manner in which he was lured and killed.
Siphamandla’s murder investigation failed to pick up steam after his body was discovered.
The City of Ekurhuleni, as a show of solidarity, handled the finances of the 10-year-old’s burial, which was held at the family’s home village, in the Eastern Cape.
“For us it’s not about the money, it’s about making sure that Siphamandla is given a decent burial and that the family gets enough support.”
The politicking that went on around Siphamandla’s case did absolutely nothing to help the investigation.
The post mortem report that came out that week confirmed the boy had been strangled to death before he was mutilated and torched.
The suspect had made a valiant attempt at getting rid of evidence by setting Siphamandla alight but this gave the special task force little insight into the person they were looking for.
A year went by with no movement in the homicide case. The Madikane family, with very few resources, tried everything to keep Siphamandla’s name alive.
On the anniversary of his death, the family, assisted by a leading political party, led a boycott outside Reiger Park police station.
At the time, the family accused the police of failing to prioritise the boy’s murder case and not communicating on the progress of the investigation.
“Only after calling numerous times were we told last month that there is an investigator working on the case. We ask them why they don’t communicate with us and no one can answer us,” Bongiwe exclaimed to reporters during the march.
At the boycott, the parents of three-year-old Curburne Lavone van Wyk was also in attendance.
In August 2014, nine months after the death of Siphamandla, Curburne’s charred body was found at a mine dump site in Ramaphosa.
The toddler was last seen on Wednesday 6 August 2014 playing outside with his siblings.
His charred body was discovered at the mine dump six days later. The parents identified the distinct scar on the toddler’s forehead as Curburne’s and DNA tests later confirmed this.
The boy, according to a post mortem report, had sustained repeated trauma to his head and was torched.
A man named Nthabiseng Katlego Phoku, who was renowned in Ramaphosa by his nickname “Chicken” was later identified as a suspect.
The glaring similarities in the murder case gave Siphamandla’s family hope that Nthabiseng would be linked to their child’s death.
However, ‘Chicken’ was convicted of murdering Curburne and, unfortunately, was never tied to Siphamandla’s death.
Nine years have come and gone without so much as a fresh lead in the 10-year-old boy’s case.
The last time Siphamandla’s mother spoke to the media was in 2015. In an interview with News24, Nokukhanya had not lost hope in finding closure.
“I’ve been praying that Mandla can fight for himself from the grave and show us who killed him.” she said at the time.
Despite our valiant efforts, we were never able to track down Nokukhanya.
Her son’s murder, much like many homicide cases in South Africa, remains unsolved.