Ep. 115 | The Brutal Sugarcane Serial Killer

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He promised them work, good jobs, steady pay, and a future on the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. For young women with nothing but a handwritten resume and borrowed bus fare, he must have sounded like an answer to a prayer. He was polite, warm, even. The kind of man you'd trust to help you start a new life. But one by one, they vanished. His name was Tozamile Taki, a man called a real jackal in a sheepskin. This is the show. Sugarcane Killer. Crime, conspiracy, cults, serial killers, and murder. All things that I love to consume, and I know you do too, you sick, twisted, beautiful, intellectually-minded freak. Today, we are talking about a little-known case, but an extremely infamous serial killer. So without further ado, let's unbuckle our seatbelts, go Mach 5 down the highway, slam on the brakes, and bust through the windshield into the serial killer case together. Tozamile Taki, a man called a real jackal in a sheepskin. Celebrating 125 years, with new moments still ahead. Tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. Have you met my kids? And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less. They call me the road warrior. This is your home, road warrior mom. Home of the save. Join for just $20. $20 at BJ's.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer, new members only. BJ's, home of the save. Ozamile Taki was born in 1971 in a rural area called Kwamajola, near the town of Port St. John's. And it sits along the wild coast of South Africa's Eastern Cape province. And today, it's one of the most beautiful and one of the poorest places in the country. But in 1971, Port St. John's wasn't part of South Africa. At all. At least, not really. It belonged to the Transkei, one of the apartheid government's so-called homelands, or Bantustans. And these were territories carved out by the white minority regime and designated for black South Africans, separated along ethnic and tribal lines. And the idea was essentially forced removal disguised as self-governance. But before any Batustan, the Transkei was designated as a pipeline feeding cheap workers, to the mines. And Cecil Joan Rhodes, the Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, set the template in the 1890s. And hut taxes bled families dry, and anti-squatter laws made it illegal for black farmers to work productive land. And labor taxes did the rest. The message was simple: go to the mines, or starve. So by the time Taki was born, the system had been grinding for nearly a century, and the land was, basically, barren, and the infrastructure was almost non-existent. And the men were gone, and Port St. John's fell within what's now called the O.R. Tambo district. So by every poverty measure available, O.R. Tambo sits at the bottom of the Eastern Cape. And the Eastern Cape sits at the bottom of the country, and nearly 65% of the people there live in poverty. 65%. That's crazy. And unemployment runs at about the same number. 18% of the population made it through school, and only 6% went any further than that. And nearly 60% of households have a woman at the head. And in a lot of cases, it's a grandmother living on a government pension. And census data from 2001 shows that Isi Xhosa was the first language of over 98% of residents in Port St. John's. So this was a tight-knit, deeply-ruled, overwhelmingly Xhosa community, and even after the apartheid ended in 1994, and the Transkei was folded back into the new South Africa, the poverty remained. And if you pull up a modern poverty map of South Africa, and then pull up a map of the old Bantustans, you're looking at the same picture. The damage was structural, and it outlasted the regime that built it. This is the world Taki was born into. So there isn't too much known about Taki's childhood, but what we do know is that Taki was the eldest of four children, and his father left for Johannesburg to find work when Taki was only nine years old, and he would never come back. And his mother couldn't work due to an illness, so the family basically had no income. So at only 13 years old, Taki was done with childhood because he needed a paycheck. So Taki's formal education ended before he finished grade four, and that's roughly the equivalent of third or fourth grade in the US. So functionally, he had almost no schooling at all. And by 19 years old, both his parents were gone, with his father leaving and his mother now passing away. And his father's disappearance wasn't super unusual, because men from Transkei had been leaving for Johannesburg and the mines for generations, pulled by the same system that had hollowed out the land in the first place. And some did come back, but many didn't. And the children and wives left behind formed the backbone of those communities. So a nine-year-old boy becoming the man of the house was not exceptional in a place like Kwamajola. It was just an everyday occurrence. Now, while the specific details of his childhood may be debatable, the poverty Taki grew up in was very real, and the abandonment was real. And the system that created those conditions was deliberate and documented. So by 19, Taki was on his own. No parents, almost no education, and no obvious parents. And he had to find his path forward. So he went looking for work. And between 1989 and 1992, he did find some at a place called Hamberdale Farm, down on the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal, near the town of Umzanto. And the Chayamoya sugar cane plantation was practically on Hamberdale's doorstep, close enough to walk to, and close enough to learn every path, clearing, and stretch of cane like the back of his hand. He spent three years working that specific land. And after leaving Hamberdale, Taki landed himself a front row seat in front of a judge. And on January 23rd, 1997, he was convicted of housebreaking with intent to steal, along with theft. And the sentence was a three-year prison sentence. And he served his time, and then got out, and within two years was back again. And on February 25th, 1999, he was found guilty of robbery. And this time, his sentence was five years. And the first conviction was about property, and the second involved violence. He was starting to escalate now. And at some point after his release, Taki made his way to Veldebacht, a neighborhood of low-cost housing in Chatsworth, near Durban. And that's where he met a woman named Lengiwe Nene, because a mutual friend had introduced them. And Taki would ask for her phone number, and she said no, and told him she didn't even have a cell phone. But he would persist. And eventually, they began a relationship that lasted about six months long. And in Nene's telling, he was warm and just really easy to be around. And she used the word loving, and he cracked jokes. He talked about marriage, about having children together at one point. But there was another side to him. He was deeply, deeply jealous, possessive in a way she couldn't live with. And when the jealousy would boil over, she would walk out, but then she would always come back. But unbeknownst to Nene, at this point, Taki already had a wife. And her name was Fusile Daniso, and she lived back in Port St. John's in the Eastern Cape. So two women in two different provinces, neither aware of the other. So a double life held together by distance and silence. And on the surface, nothing about Taki screamed danger, because he was charming enough to draw women in, and persuasive enough to keep them. and controlled enough to manage some separate lives hundreds of kilometers apart without either one collapsing. But in early 2007, none of that had been truly tested yet. Because he was just a man in a township living with his girlfriend, offering to help young women find work, and they believed him. So the first body turned up in June 2007, a woman's remains found in the sugarcane fields outside Shemoya Township near Amzinto. But this wouldn't trigger a manhunt, and it wouldn't even make national news. But it shook the people who lived there. And a community leader, Gugu Leitumeyende, organized a protest after the discovery, and residents demanded answers from police. But sadly, nothing came of it. And three months later, the answers arrived on their own. Now, September 9th, 2007, was a typical Sunday morning in Shemoya. But then, a dog-aparted, appeared in the streets of the township. And it wasn't the dog, that was odd, that was pretty normal. But it was what was in his mouth. And it was a woman's decomposing head in its jaws. And residents who saw it followed the trail back toward the sugarcane fields. And there, they found the rest of her body, just discarded among the cane. Now, word moved fast, and a crowd gathered. And by nightfall, a second set of remains had turned up in the same, stretch of cane. And Shemoya went from uneasy, to terrified, in a matter of hours. And over the next three days, the count kept climbing. And workers harvesting sugarcane kept finding bodies as they moved through the rows. And detectives combed the fields, and turned up more still. And by Wednesday, September 12th, a fifth body had been recovered. And the remains all lay within a single stretch of a private plantation. Just bodies left where they fell. And the sugarcane fields that surrounded Shemoya had always been part of daily life. Kids would play in them. Families worked them. But now, they had become something else entirely. And the condition of the bodies made everything harder, because decomposition had ravaged every set of remains. And several showed signs of burning. And not a single victim could be identified by sight. And by September 14th, five days after the dog changed everything, only one victim, had been positively identified. Nombali Ningobo, who was 35 years old, from Enanda. And weeks later, by late October, her body was still the only one with a confirmed name attached to it. But relatives would show up, hoping to match what a daughter or sister had been wearing the same day she left home, and then disappeared. But formal identification required DNA testing, and those results took a lot of time. But near one of the bodies, detectives found someone's identity, and the body was not found. The body was still there, but it was not found. And the body was still there, but it was not found. But near one of the bodies, detectives found someone's identity, and the body was still there, but it was not found. But near one of the bodies, detectives found someone's identity document, and a handful of handwritten CVs, essentially resumes, left in the dirt a few feet from the remains. So the killer had taken what he had wanted and just discarded the rest. A police spokesperson, Zandra Hector, confirmed the emerging picture publicly, quote, "All the victims were females between the age of 18 and 35, and we suspect the cause of death was strangulation," unquote. And by the time the fifth body was pulled from the cane, the investigation had already escalated. And the national office in Pretoria sent Gerhardt Labuscagne, one of the country's top serial crime investigators, to join the case. And his presence told the community what the police hadn't yet said out loud: someone was hunting in those fields. And the community leader, who'd organized the first protest back in June, spoke again, saying, quote, "We came together as community leaders and the police to end this nonsense. We want this nonsense to stop," unquote. Because fear had settled over Chayamoya, like something physical. And the cane fields weren't a backdrop anymore. They were a crime scene that just kept expanding. And the worst part is that no one knew if it was over, because no suspects had been named at this point, and no arrests had been made. The only thing anyone knew for certain was that someone in this community, or near it, had been killing women and leaving their bodies in the same stretch of sugarcane for months. So the Port Shepstone Organized Crime Unit took the lead in the investigation. And the Kuzulu-Natal Provincial Office backed the effort. And together, they built a full-time task team focused on nothing but these murders. And Lieutenant Colonel Campbell Neuswa ran the operation. And Captain Nico Kraus served as the investigating officer on the ground. And beneath them, a core team of detectives formed the backbone of the investigation. Warrant Officer Bridget Kraus warned Officer Ernest Nkabane, Warrant Officer Dumisani Nizama, Captain Samuel Niyawose, and Captain Francois Moeller. And the search effort put 30 cops and a team of sniffer dogs into the field at the same time. And Pretoria sent its own forensic unit to help process what the local team couldn't handle alone. And that paperwork that the killer had discarded as useless or worthless turned out to be the thread that connected everything. Investigators started contacting the family to find out what was going on, and to find out who the killer was. After a long search, they found that the killer was the same person who had reported the murder. And every single one had already filed a missing persons report. And every single one told detectives the same thing. Their daughter, or sister, or niece, had met a man who promised her a job. Then she vanished. And at first, police resisted putting the word "serial" on record. But the remains kept surfacing, and the victim profiles kept matching, and eventually the denial became a lie. And that's what we're going to talk about in this episode. But first, let's talk about a case that ultimately broke the case open. And then came the break. Andudu Neteta walked into a police station and told detectives she'd nearly become a victim herself. Because she sat beside Taki on a minibus, bound for Chayamoya, and decided, at the last moment, not to follow him. And now she worked with investigators to produce a composite sketch of the man. And for the first time, the task team had a face. But the evidence that ultimately broke the case open wasn't a face, it was a phone. And cell phone analysis working with the task team began tracing the devices that had belonged to the missing women. And one of the phones registered to victim Nosisa Nozozo was still active. And the signal led them to a woman named Duniswa Daniso, living in the town of Stranger, north of Durban. And she said the phone had come from her brother-in-law, and his name was Tozomile Taki. And from there, the trail moved south and east. And from Stranger, the chain led to her sister, Vusile, Taki's wife. Remember, he has a wife and a girlfriend, and that's his actual wife in Port St. Johns. And through Vusile, detectives got Taki's location. So that phone trail gave them an address. And that was Taki's home in Welbeduct. And now, it was a matter of timing. So on September 24th, 2007, at two o'clock in the morning, officers moved in on the house in the dark. And inside, they found Taki and his girlfriend, Nene, together. And both would be taken into custody on the spot. And then detectives tore the place apart. And they found essentially a catalog of the missing cell phones, clothing, blankets, bank cards, store cards from clothing shops. All of it belonged to the missing women. And the items weren't hidden either. They were just there, woven into the household like they belonged to anyone. And among the haul were child support grant cards, meaning these women were mothers trying to feed their children. And one find stood out. A cell phone recovered from Nene's possession turned out to belong to Charity Kumalo, who would be one of the victims. And when confronted, Nene told the police that she'd purchased it herself at a jet store, but no proof of the purchase ever materialized. And she was accused of being an accessory after the fact. And police picked up three more people in the aftermath. And all three were eventually released without being charged. And in the end, only two people faced charges. And for the people closest to Taki, the arrest made no sense. And Nene's sister, Nan Kululeko, knew Taki personally. She spent time around him before the police showed up. And she told reporters afterward what she remembered, saying, "He was a wonderful person. When I heard about the arrest, I could not believe he had been implicated. I thought the people that arrested him were lying. It was unlike him." And that disbelief wasn't naivety. It was instead a measure of how thoroughly Taki controlled what people saw. Because the man Nene's sister described was warm and present. And the man found that night at 2 a.m. was sitting in a house full of dead women's belongings. So now with Taki in custody, investigators moved quickly. And identity parades were organized at two separate locations along the coast, Hibberdine and Brighton Beach. And witnesses were brought in individually and asked to pick Taki out of a lineup. And every witness picked Taki out of that lineup immediately. And on November 9th, 2007, Taki appeared at the Umzinto Magistrates Court for a bail hearing. And the proceeding was adjourned until the end of the month. And by then, the investigation had widened far beyond what anyone initially expected. And even after his arrest, remains continued to surface because the sugarcane fields near Chayamoya hadn't given up all of their dead. So by October, detectives had already pulled eight bodies from the fields. And the count hit 11 on November 14th, all from the same stretch of sugarcane fields. near Shiamoya. And then two more victims were found far from the south coast. And police recovered them from tea fields near Port St. John's, deep in the Easter Cape. And this is the place where Taki grew up. And investigators tied both killings to Taki. So at this point, it's now 13 victims in two provinces. And the South African government released a statement saying, quote, "Had the police not arrested "in September 2007, he probably would have continued "his evil deeds," unquote. Seven months of killing. And the only thing that stopped it was a stolen cell phone that Taki handed off to a relative, assuming it would never circle back. - This episode is brought to you by Nordstrom. - Hank joined BJ's Wholesale Club the day he became a father of 30. - I coach football. - Now Coach Hank saves up to 25% off grocery store prices. 30 pounds of pasta, three cases of protein bars, 75 sports drinks. - And that's just pregame. - He knows teamwork and BJ's knows savings. Home of the save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com/mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. - So once Taki was in custody, investigators sat him down. And at first, he gave them something small. He acknowledged the cell phone, admitting that he had it and that he'd passed it along to his sister-in-law. And soon after, Taki confessed to the killings. All of them. And his confession covered both killing grounds. The sugarcane fields outside of Umzinto and the tea plantations back near Port St. John's. But he did something else too. He made a handwritten list of the names of the women that he killed. And he went with the officers to the crime scenes, walking them through the places where he had left the bodies. And multiple officers accompanied him on each visit. And the pointing out, as it's called in South African law, was witnessed and documented. And for a brief window, it looked like the case might be pretty straightforward. A confession, a handwritten list of victims, and a suspect who led police to the scenes himself. But then Taki changed his story. But before anything else, there were 13 women who deserve to be known and remembered. They were young, between 18 and 35. And they came from small towns and townships scattered across two of South Africa's poorest provinces. And some of those places are hundreds of kilometers apart. But the women who came from them had almost everything in common. They were looking for work. Some already had jobs and wanted better ones. And some had never been employed at all. And they'd grown up in communities where steady income was rare, where opportunity was something you chased across provincial lines if it ever showed up at all. And every one of them left home telling their families, the same thing. They'd met a man who could get them work at factories or companies. And there was a pattern in who Taki chose. Most of his victims spoke Isisulu, even in areas where Isisulu was more common. So he targeted women from his own language group. Women who'd feel comfortable with him, who'd trust a stranger a little faster because he sounded like home. And he introduced himself as someone who could place people in real companies with familiar names. And he would say he could get them hired at places like Hewlett's, Nestle, Ilovo, Cezella, and Toyota. And these promises were specific enough to sound legitimate, especially to someone who'd never been through a formal hiring process. And once a woman was interested, the next step was always money. He told some they'd need to cover their first month's rent at company housing near the job site. And he told others the money was a bribe, a payment to make sure the position actually went to them. And the amounts ranged from 300 Rand to 3,000 Rand. And that's roughly $40 to 430 US dollars at the time. So for women earning almost nothing or earning nothing at all, that was a sizable amount of money. So some had to borrow it from relatives and some families went as far as borrowing from loan sharks just to fund what they believed was a fresh start. And then came the trip. Taki would travel with the women by minibus. Heading toward the area where the supposed job was waiting. And Taki even convinced some of these women to cover his taxi fare as they traveled together. Just a utter scumbag piece of shit. And to anyone else on the bus, they looked completely normal. Nothing worthy of alarm. So 13 women followed him off the bus and into the sugar cane fields or the tea plantations, believing they were walking toward a paycheck, toward, you know, toward a future. But they were actually walking toward their death. And then when Taki had them alone, he would methodically strangle them. And then he would take the clothes off of their bodies. And whether that happened before or after they passed away, no one could say for certain. And then he would take their cash, their cell phones, their bank cards, and their store cards. And there were reasons to believe the women had been essayed as well. But decomposition and burning had destroyed too. Because after the killings, he burned some of those women's bodies. So between the fire and the subtropical climate of the South Coast, decomposition was extremely quick. And at the time the remains were recovered, they had deteriorated to the point where forensic experts struggled to confirm how each individual woman had actually been killed. And he also didn't scatter the remains across a wide area. And in some cases, the distance between one set of remains and the next, was barely 15 meters. So he had a dumping ground, and he returned to it again, and again, and again. And what he left behind was just as telling as what he took. ID books, welfare cards, CVs, the women had written out by hand, 'cause he had no use for those. But those discarded papers were the only way to put names to what was left. And 11 of the 13 victims were found in the sugar cane fields near Cheyamoya, outside the town, of Mzinto, on KwaZulu-Natal's South Coast. And the other two women turned up far from the South Coast. And their remains were in the tea plantations at Kwamejola near Port St. And that geographic split tells a story of its own. Because Mzinto was where Taki lived with Nene. And Port St. John's was where he'd been born, where he'd grown up, and where his wife, Vasile, still lived. So he was killing in both of the places that he called home. And these killings took place over the span of seven months. So from February to September, 2007, Taki would take 13 women's lives in roughly 30 weeks. And allegedly, a sangoma, or a traditional healer, received body parts taken from some of the women Taki killed. And the claim is that certain remains were used for muti, which refers to traditional medicine, though this was never proven. But the core of what Taki did required no dark ritual. It required poverty and isolation and trust. And he found women who had no safety net, promised them the one thing they couldn't refuse, and took them somewhere no one could help them. And the Sawatan newspaper made a broader observation that the trick of luring vulnerable, unemployed women with fake employment offers was far from original. And they noted that at least 12 other serial predators in the country had relied on the same playbook to isolate and kill. So Taki was no innovator. He was a predator operating inside a system that kept producing easy prey. But luckily, there was one woman who crossed paths with Taki and survived. And her name was Dudu Ntefe, the woman we spoke about briefly before. Luckily, her instinct saved her, because she'd been in the seat right next to him on the minibus headed for Shoyamoya, listening to the same pitch about work. But when the ride ended and he stood up to leave, something in her gut just said, "Don't follow him." So she got off. But the names of the victims who were not as fortunate were: Makosi Ngobozi, Nokolo Mpande, Nosisa Nozozo, Charity Ntethwa, Rose Njoli, Nozibele, Kanyesile Nkayayane, Tadeika Ntabeni, Nanjabulo Npanze, Pilisiwe Mpanza, Tendanzele Bokoda, Sezie Tsishonga, and Charity Kumalo. And for most of these women, the public records show nothing but a name and maybe a hometown. No biography, no interview, no photograph with a caption, but they were mothers, sisters, and daughters. Women who packed a bag, told their families they'd found the promise of more, and walked toward a non-existent future. And that is why this video is structured a little bit differently, because as much as I would love to give you all the details on all these beautiful women, we have essentially none. But I can show you their picture and tell you their names, and as always, my heart goes out to these families and to these women, and they deserve to be remembered. So as the trial began in July 2008 at the High Court Sitting in Ramsgate, a small town in KwaZulu-Natal's south coast, it wouldn't end for two and a half years, and from the very first day, Taki just denied everything. He said he wasn't a killer at all, just a man who helped people find work at sugarcane plantations, and the reversal was total, because in the interrogation room, he'd given investigators a roadmap to every victim, dumbest human being in the world, and in the courtroom, he just acted like he'd never heard their names, the names in which he gave to detectives, but 103 witnesses were called to testify, and because Taki spoke Isikosa, many of his victims and their families spoke Isikosa, and the court, operated in English, every piece of testimony had to pass through a chain of translation, so Isikosa to Isizulu to English, three languages with every question and every answer and every objection, so the pace of the proceedings was extremely slow by design, and Taki pleaded not guilty to all charges, and every witness who testified against him was just a liar, according to Taki. In every piece of evidence the state introduced was just fabricated, according to Taki, and he rejected the entire case, essentially, and his defense counsel, Tulani Shange, presented a simple argument, and he would say Taki wasn't a killer, he was a middleman, someone who connected job seekers with sugarcane plantations and collected a finder's fee, that was it, shut up, and on the stand, Taki repeated what he'd said about Hamburdale Farm. He'd worked there between the years of his life and the years of his career, and he'd said, he'd worked there between 1989 and 1992, he said, but never once set foot in the surrounding plantations, and he claimed he didn't know where Sheyamoyo was, but the prosecution pointed out the two properties were practically on top of each other, so the court, naturally, didn't believe him at all, and Nene had her own lawyer, a man named Carlo Filiun, who handled her defense separately, but it was Taki's case that consumed the courtroom, and the state's case, led by advocate, was a case that consumed the courtroom, and the state's case, led by advocate, was a case that Nekolo Tokwana, rested on layers of circumstantial evidence that, taken together, left no room for doubt. Cell phone records showing Taki used dead women's phones to call Nene and reach out to new targets. Identity parades at Hibberdine and Brighton Beach, where every witness picked him out without hesitation, and the handwritten list of victims' names he gave to the police, and the pointing out of all of the crime scenes, and the unmistakable pattern that connected every killing. Two separate trials within a trial interrupted the main proceedings, and both centered on evidence the defense wanted thrown out, and the first one involved the handwritten list of victims' names Taki had produced during interrogation, but his story was that officers already had a finished list, and they put it in front of him, and he said, and told him to reproduce it by hand on a separate sheet of paper, so that, you know, he was coerced in writing this list, he's saying. And he said an investigator, Inspector Nkabinde, read the names to him. Then Judge Nklovu dismantled the claim piece by piece, thankfully, and he pointed to the misspellings. Several names on the list were spelled wrong, and if Taki had been copying from a finished document, the spelling probably would have matched. And also, since Taki claimed the list was sitting right there for him to see, why would anyone need to read the names out loud? It just didn't make sense because Taki wasn't that smart. And the two claims just contradicted each other. So the judge called him out on it. Taki was lying. And the second trial within a trial challenged the pointing out, because Taki denied he'd ever accompanied officers to the crime scenes and alleged that police had beaten him. But the judge heard testimony from every officer present during those visits, and every single officer said the same thing. No one laid a hand on him. And under cross-examination, not one of them cracked or changed their story. And the judge said he was satisfied, saying, quote, there were lots of officers that were with accused number one, unquote, and both challenges failed. So the list and the pointing out stayed in evidence. Shocker. Taki also tried an alibi for at least one of the murders, and he claimed he had been in the Eastern Cape at the time and couldn't have been involved. And a relative even took the stand to back up his claim. But the judge saw through it immediately, claiming the alibi was invented. And Taki and the relative who testified for him had cooked it up together. And the judge called the denial, quote, unquote, bare and bold. Just put nothing behind it. No evidence, no logic, and no credibility. He's basically just throwing pasta at the wall and hoping it sticks. You know, or pasta. Sorry, I'm Canadian. I say pasta. So come at me for it. But through it all, Taki behaved as though nothing that happened in the courtroom touched him, because he would just show up looking pretty polished, navy suit, tie, the whole presentation, like a man who wanted the room to take him seriously. Just like a worse Ted Bundy, basically. And while witnesses spoke, he wrote things down. He'd lean toward his lawyer, whisper something, and slide a note across. And it happened most often when state witnesses were being cross-examined. But remember, on paper, he barely finished grade four. But in the court, he was a great witness. And he was a great witness. But in the courtroom, he was tracking arguments in real time and feeding his lawyer strategy notes. And the judge observed this closely, yet described Taki's intellect as, quote, unquote, average, if not somewhat above average. And then families took the stand and fell apart. Mothers sobbed. Sisters could barely speak. And Taki sat there grinning at them. Oh, it's just a little good. And on one occasion, he turned on, a photographer who'd been documenting the proceedings, saying, quote, I will hit this boy if he continues taking pictures of me. He is disturbing me. In Romsgate, he was doing the same thing, unquote, Taki would say. And the judge just told him to stop looking at the photographer. And he also complained about the food he was being served at the Margate police station cells. And officials pulled him out of the Margate police station lockup after he wouldn't stop making demands about what he was being fed. This guy's ego. And the families who filled the gallery watched all of this. Every time Taki appeared in the dock, the gallery let him hear it. And they sang. And excuse me for my pronunciation. I am trying my very best. And in English, it means you said you wanted to hire them, but you wanted to kill them. And now the case drew attention from the, highest levels of government and police minister, Natim Tethwa, showed up after the lunch break and stayed for the rest of the day's testimony. And the ministry for women, children, and persons with disabilities sent its director general, Dr. Nandlanla Nkise to sit with the victim's families. And she was there for two full days of testimony. And one small detail buried in the testimony of the landlord named Nomusa Nzama, opened a door the trial never walked through. $150 a month for an RDP house. That's what Taki and Nene were paying her. But before Nene came into the picture, the landlord said there was someone else, a different woman sharing that house with Taki. Quote, "The other woman left when she was heavily pregnant. I don't know where she went to." Unquote. No follow-up, no name, no record of what became of her. Just one more silence in a case full of them. Then on February 21, 2010, the trial nearly came apart for a different reason. Because nine inmates still waiting on trial at Westville Prison in Durban made a break for it because they knotted their bedsheets into a rope and went over the side. And Taki, of course, was one of them. But he slipped during the descent and fell, and the impact shattered his leg. Womp, womp, karma's a bitch. And the noise he made on the way down gave the whole thing away. And warders heard him and realized what was happening. And eight of the nine inmates made it to the ground and disappeared. And Taki was the only one left behind. So by March 2, he appeared in court in a wheelchair, but he wasn't there to face his own charges. He was requesting bail for Nene, and the injury delayed the proceedings. And at this point, eight witnesses still hadn't testified, and proceedings ground to a halt. And the next court date was set for April 30, 2010. And from that point on, every time the court convened, Taki rolled in on his wheelchair. And one morning, the recording equipment broke, and the proceedings had to start late. So just nothing about this trial moved the way it was supposed to. It just stretched across three years, two courthouses, three languages, and more than a hundred witnesses. And at the center of it, the man in the wheelchair just smiling. These are the moments that make Nordstrom Nordstrom. I coach football. Now Coach Hank saves up to 25% off grocery store prices. And that's just pregame. He knows teamwork and BJ's knows savings. Home of the Save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for 6 months. Open soon. Limited time offer. New members only. BJ's. Home of the Save. But on December 23rd, 2010, Judge King Ndlovu delivered his verdict. And it was guilty on every single count. 13 murders and 13 robberies with aggravating circumstances. And the judge told the courtroom, quote, The person who lured the women, promised them jobs, but killed them and dumped their bodies in sugarcane fields was none other than Tozemile Taki. The state has proven their case beyond reasonable doubt on all 26 counts, unquote. And the judge called Taki's testimony evasive and untrue. And his alibi held no weight at all. And when the verdict was read, Taki stood and walked out of the dock, smirking. And police minister Nafi was present in the gallery when it happened. And for Nene, the outcome was different. And the state had argued Nene was aware of what Taki was doing and had taken the victim's cell phones to help him dodge justice. And the judge said none of that had been proven. And he acquitted her on every count and said she'd been caught up in a situation of her own making, saying, quote, Had she done so, she would not be in this mess, unquote. And at that point, her sister wept, quote, And even some of the victim's families accepted it. And Bongi, who'd lost her sister Makosi, said she held nothing against Nene, quote, We saw her family and it affected us that she was a mother. She didn't spill any blood so she can go home and spend time with her family. She didn't spill any blood so she can go home and spend time with her kids, unquote. But the anger toward Nene hadn't disappeared. She tried to leave the courthouse, but couldn't. Women from the community had positioned themselves at the courthouse exits. And they weren't there to wish her well. And officers surrounded her and put her in the back of a police vehicle. And got her out of there before the crowd could reach her. And Nene said afterward that she was just numb. That she didn't know what she'd say to Taki if she ever spoke to him again. And that dating him had. Taught her a lesson she'd never asked to learn. And the court adjourned until January for sentencing arguments. And Taki was sent back to Westville Prison. And when proceedings resumed, prosecutor Noxolo Takwana stood up and asked the court for the maximum. And she told the court the state wanted life behind bars on every murder count. And 15 years on every robbery count. And she said the man sitting in the dock had exploited the most vulnerable people in the country. And deserved nothing from the court but its full weight. had given her that title. And on this day, she accepted it with restraint. And she touched on what came after the verdict, how not every family was in the same place. Some were managing and others, she said, hadn't gotten there yet and still needed grief counseling. And Minister Lulu Shingwane spoke about the conditions that had made these women targets saying, quote, these young women died because they were trapped in poverty and wanted a way out, unquote. And the timing wasn't accidental, she said. And Workers' Day was the right moment to say out loud what this case proved. When women have no income and no options, they become easier targets. And the Kasatu general secretary took the microphone and traced a line from the killings back through decades of deliberate dispossession. And the plaque now stood near the fields where the women were found and 13 names etched into the stone. A reminder that the women who went looking for a job in Umzinto had been real and they mattered. And that the place that took them from the world owed them at least this much. So that is it for the sugar cane serial killer case. You guys recommended this case. Please feel free to recommend any more cases you want me to deep dive into and tell you guys about. And until next time, I will see your beautiful face. Okay, stay safe out there. Bye. That's why she shops at BJ's Wholesale Club, saving up to $20,000. 25% off grocery store prices. Home of the save. Join for just $20 at bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Cozy season is ahead and you'll be spending way more time inside. Is your home ready? Don't worry. With Wayfair, you can upgrade your space without breaking the bank. Score up to 70% off during their Labor Day clearance on furniture, area rugs, mattresses, and more. Plus surprise flash deals you can't miss. Whether it's one room or the whole house, Wayfair has pieces for every style and budget. Shop Wayfair's Labor Day clearance now through September 7th at wayfair.com.