Case Files

Widow sees haunting face of suspected killer again

Johannesburg – Margaret Fabris would see her husband’s killer before she fell asleep every night, then 12 years after the murder she saw his face for real staring out of a police line-up. The identification of the alleged shooter is the breakthrough in a cold case that saw a procession of private investigators (PIs) come […]

The ‘Tiger Tiger Five’: Story of a race hoax

On 26 November last year the Cape Times led with the story of a vicious racial attack by a gang of young white youths on a 52-year-old Coloured cleaning lady outside of the Tiger Tiger nightclub in Claremont Cape Town on the night of the 17/18 October 2014. The article by the reporter Carlo Petersen – headed ‘3 […]

Investigators save Suicidal Mom

A private investigator travelling between King Williams Town and East London yesterday saved the life of a 21-year-old woman who tried to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge. The woman was allegedly about to throw herself off a bridge over the busy N2 near Nahoon Dam turn-off when Gonubie-based private investigator Christian Botha and […]

Young man has confessed to crime

A man wanted in connection with the murder of an assistant bank manager killed for his cellphone in Amalinda last year was arrested this week. The 20-year-old suspect, Siyabonga Menziwa, was arrested by police on Thursday night at a shack in Bardaton informal settlement in Duncan Village, said Captain Leon Fortune. Fortune said the man […]

Woman foils armed robbers

Cops set trap after former chief executive became target of attack In a town that doesn’t see much in the way of violent crime, they came armed with R-4 and R-5 rifles – their tar- get: a prominent South African businesswoman. But the four men who had planned to rob former Billabong South Africa chief executive […]

Wrongly convicted man freed

The first ting that Phumlani Sam asked warders for when he stepped into the West Bank Maximum Prison to begin his 15 year jail sentence for business robbery was to be put in a cell with churchgoers. Sam had heard horror stories about how hardened criminals welcomed new inmates by assaulting them with padlocks and […]

The Norma Worsley Case

Norma Worsley, 72, was strangled in her Rondebosch home two years ago, shortly after taking her spaniel Purdy for her daily walk.  The Mowbray police handled the case, but four successive investigating officers failed to track down the killer. Worsley’s children hired a Cape Town security firm which also does criminal investigations, but they also […]

The Harding Case

Botha’s gruesome discovery on September 4 brought an end to her Eastern Cape family’s hopes that the bubbly young woman they called “Koeksie” would be found alive. Although there was little left of her body – just a few bones and teeth – Hamann’s four rings were identified by family members, who broke down when […]