Ninth woman’s body found as South Africa probes series of killings

Police have found the body of another murdered woman on the outskirts of South Africa’s commercial capital – after the discovery of eight female corpses in the same area of Johannesburg in the past two months.

Police said they found the body of a ninth woman and imposed a lockdown in Kempton Park in the Ekurhuleni municipality on Thursday. Three of the partially naked bodies were found in the area this week.

The string of murders has stoked public anxiety that these crimes may have been carried out by a serial killer. Police earlier said that some similarities in the killings of the first eight victims were “sufficiently concerning” for the police to issue a public warning.

“Investigators are considering all possibilities, including the possibility of multiple suspects or separate perpetrators,” said Fred Kekana, the police commissioner for South Africa’s Gauteng province.

The first five bodies were discovered in or near Kempton Park; the others were found in separate locations 25-35km (16-22 miles) away.

“Police are comparing the evidence, timelines, locations, victim profiles and circumstances of each case,” Kekana said, adding that while it is too early to connect the killings to a serial killer, “the similarities in the cases were concerning”.

All were women in their 20s or 30s, and all were found either naked or partially clothed, police said. Some of the bodies had similar bruising.

The first body was discovered on July 17, naked and restrained with cable ties. A suspect believed to have been the victim’s boyfriend was arrested and taken into custody, according to police, though no charges were filed against him.

One of the other victims was identified as 38-year-old Elizabeth Tsontso Moselakgomo, who went missing while out jogging. She was reported missing after her eight-year-old daughter alerted family members that she had not returned from her daily afternoon jog, and she was found dead several days later.

Another body was found naked and in an advanced stage of decomposition, authorities said.

The youngest victim has been identified as a 20-year-old woman.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa has vowed “no stone will be left unturned” in the investigation into the deaths, ⁠and authorities are now offering a reward of 400,000 South African rand ($25,000) for information leading to the apprehension of the perpetrator or perpetrators.

Women in the vicinity of where the bodies were discovered have also been advised to be “extremely cautious” and not to go out alone.

“We cannot continue picking up bodies,” Tebello Mosikili, the deputy national commissioner for policing in the South African Police Service, told journalists at the scene of the latest discovery.

The killings have highlighted the high rates of violence against women in South Africa, which has one of the highest femicide rates in the world, according to the United Nations.

South African police recorded 9,782 reported rapes between January and March 2026, along with 12,590 sexual offences. That amounts to roughly 108 reported rapes every day.

Almost half of those reported rapes, 4,620, or 47.2 percent, took place at the home of the victim or the perpetrator, according to police statistics.

In November last year, South Africa’s National Disaster Management Centre classified gender-based violence and femicide as a national disaster following sustained pressure from civil society organisations.

A study in 2022 by a South African think tank found that more than 35 percent of South African adult women had experienced physical or sexual violence at some point.