‘What if it was me?’- sex worker recalls brush with Mkhwanazi
Sex workers operating in the Johannesburg CBD say they remain fearful following the serial rapes and murders committed by convicted killer Sifiso Mkhwanazi over two years ago.
Pre-sentencing proceedings against Mkhwanazi are set to begin next month after the matter was postponed in the High Court sitting in Palm Ridge on Wednesday afternoon.
He was arrested and tried following the discovery of six decomposed female bodies at his father’s workshop in October 2022.
Two of his victims were pregnant.
On Wednesday, state prosecutor Leswikane Mashabela told the court that the report from Sterkfontein Psychiatric Hospital was ready.
In May, Judge Cassim Moosa ordered that Mkhwanazi undergo a mental assessment to determine whether he is a danger to society.
This section of the law provides for a serial offender to be declared a habitual criminal. It permits the court to declare the person a dangerous criminal and impose an indeterminate sentence.
A woman who operates as a sex worker in the Johannesburg CBD, near the workshop where the grim discovery of the bodies was made, says she believes she narrowly escaped death when Mkhwanazi began his killing spree.
The woman, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisal, said in July 2022, Mkhwanazi stopped to solicit their services.
“He asked for me first, and when I went there, he asked, ‘Which language do you speak?’. When I said isiNdebele he said, ‘No, I don’t want you. Call that other lady’.
“The thing that comes through my mind is, what if it was me? Was I going to leave my kids behind because of this guy?”
She has two children, aged 23 and six.
The colleague, she said, is one of three unidentified victims.
READ: ‘Waiting for her to come home’ – slain sex worker’s family still reeling
She says while they are forced to continue making a living in risky circumstances, they now refuse to enter clients’ cars.
“Some guys that come to us have cars, and when they tell us to get into their cars we say no because we are scared of what happened. The girls that died, it’s because they got into those cars.”
The woman said she’ll feel safer once she knows how long Mkhwanazi will remain behind bars.
VICTIMS: MAGAIZA, MOYO AND NYARAI
Mkhwanazi made admissions in which he took responsibility for the murders but denied raping the women or that the murders were pre-planned.
In his admissions, Mkhwanazi said he placed the body of Patricia Magaiza in a drum full of old oil and later removed it because it didn’t fit.
He also admitted to strangling Joyce Moyo, before tying a cloth over her mouth, nose, and neck.
Moyo’s body was found in a transparent plastic bag, stashed behind scrap metal.
Her body was found in a transparent plastic bag -stashed behind scrap metal.
Chihota Nyarai was the only one of Mkhwanazi’s six victims who was shot.
READ MORE: Investigator tells court Mkhwanazi led victims to ‘slaughterhouse’
He admitted that he shot Nyarai in the head at close range, with his father’s gun, and then hid her body in a black trolley bin in the workshop yard.
The three were identified through DNA testing.
On Wednesday, the state submitted a victim impact report for Moyo. However, the prosecutor said the same report for Nyarai was only received on Tuesday and would be available to the court at a later stage.
According to social workers, a victim impact report could not be obtained for Magaiza’s family as they did not cooperate.
FATHER ALLEGEDLY TOLD SEX WORKERS ‘SORRY’
The sex worker who was in court on Wednesday said Mkhwanazi’s father, Mark Khumalo, previously spoke with sex workers who had been attending the trial, asking how they felt seeing his son in the dock.
“He was asking us, ‘How are you feeling, girls? I am sorry this happened because, as a parent, you can’t control what kids do outside’.”
She said they asked Khumalo if he knew that the murders were taking place, and he denied any knowledge.
“I don’t believe him one bit. The bodies were smelling. They were rotten. How can you work inside the factory and not smell anything?”
When Khumalo took the stand as the state’s witness he testified that his son had told him that the rancid smell in the workshop came from a cat that had died inside one of the rooms.
Mkhwanazi's confession to his father after his arrest was admitted as evidence following a trial-within-a-trial.
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