Obsessed with a serial killer

The five-part series is the official companion podcast to former crime reporter and investigative journalist Janine Lazarus’ true crime memoir - ‘BAIT: To Catch a Killer’ which was published a few months ago to rave reviews.

It tells a deeply personal story of Lazarus’ hair-raising career in the early 90s as a headline-grabbing crime reporter in Johannesburg.

Lazarus began covering the Norwood serial killer case as the elusive psychopath was raping and murdering women in their homes in her neighbourhood.

In a deadly game of cat and mouse, Lazarus was used by the police as a decoy in a sting operation to trap The Norwood serial killer.

She admits to breaking just about every rule in newsroom ethics as she became increasingly obsessed with Kobus Geldenhuys.

Lazarus made her name as one of South Africa's finest investigative journalists back in the early 1990s, working for The Star, Saturday Star and Sunday Star. These days she heads up a successful communication and media training agency.

‘To Catch a Serial Killer’ is hosted by Jacaranda FM’s News Editor Marius van der Walt.

Episodes include commentary from true-crime experts such as Dr Gerard Labuschagne, former head of the SAPS psychiatric unit, who spent four years doing a thesis on over 130 serial killers.

We also hear from respected clinical psychologist Leonard Carr about what drives someone to commit the most fundamental taboo – murder.

Start listening to episode one below, or download the series from your smart phones podcast app and listen later.

Episode two deals with the state of news reporting in South Africa. Has it become better or worse? When Lazarus worked in news in the early 1990s, there was no Internet, no access to mobile phones, no social media. It was boots to the ground kind of stuff.

Lazarus and  and Van der Walt are joined by Anton Harber, the Caxton Professor of Journalism (Adjunct) at the University of the Witwatersrand.

They look at how sourcing news and news coverage has changed; whether new communication technologies have revitalised the public sphere or simply become the commercial tool for an increasingly undemocratic news media.

Keen to catch up on the rest of the series? Find all past episodes below.

Click on the icons below to listen on Spotify, Apple or Google Podcasts...