True crime cases in South Africa

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  Pretoria, South Africa · 2010s

  Murder of Reeva Steenkamp

  Model Reeva Steenkamp was shot and killed by her boyfriend, Paralympic and Olympic runner Oscar Pistorius, at his Pretoria home in the early hours of 14 February 2013. After a highly publicized trial, Pistorius was initially convicted of culpable homicide, but South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal later overturned that verdict and convicted him of murder, ultimately sentencing him to 15 years in prison.

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  Cape Town, South Africa · 2010

  Murder of Anni Dewani

  Swedish newlywed Anni Dewani was shot dead during a taxi hijacking on her honeymoon near Cape Town in 2010; three men were convicted of the crime and her husband was acquitted and exonerated.

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  Golf estate, Stellenbosch, Western Cape, South Africa · 2015

  Murder of Martin, Teresa, and Rudi van Breda

  Three members of the van Breda family were killed with an axe at their home on a golf estate in Stellenbosch, South Africa, in January 2015, while the youngest son was convicted of the murders in 2018 after a lengthy trial.

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  Dawn Park, Boksburg, South Africa · 1993

  Assassination of Chris Hani

  Chris Hani, General-Secretary of the South African Communist Party, was shot dead outside his home in Dawn Park, Boksburg, on 10 April 1993 by right-wing extremist Janusz Waluś. Waluś and accomplice Clive Derby-Lewis, who supplied the weapon, were convicted and sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment; the killing intensified political unrest ahead of South Africa's first democratic elections in 1994.

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  Ntabelanga, Bulhoek valley, Cape Province (present-day Eastern Cape) · 1921

  Bulhoek massacre

  On 24 May 1921, an 800-strong white-led South African police force killed an estimated 163 Xhosa "Israelite" followers of Enoch Mgijima at Ntabelanga in the Bulhoek valley, Cape Province, after a prolonged land dispute.

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  Walkerville, Gauteng, South Africa · 2004

  Murder of Leigh Matthews

  Leigh Matthews, a South African university student, was kidnapped and shot dead in 2004; Donovan Moodley pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

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  Leliefontein, Namaqualand, Northern Cape, South Africa · 1902

  Leliefontein massacre

  In January 1902, during the Second Boer War, Boer forces under Manie Maritz killed dozens of Nama residents at the Leliefontein Methodist mission station in Namaqualand after an earlier clash left Boer casualties.

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  Tempe military base, near Bloemfontein, South Africa · 1999

  1999 Tempe military base shooting

  On 16 September 1999, Lt. Sibusiso Madubela, identified by an official inquiry as the shooter, shot and killed eight people — seven soldiers and one civilian, all white — at the Tempe military base near Bloemfontein, South Africa, before being shot dead by two soldiers, amid a backdrop of racial tension in the post-apartheid military.

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  Johannesburg South, Gauteng Province, South Africa · 2021

  Murder of Babita Deokaran

  Babita Deokaran, a South African whistleblower and acting chief director of financial accounting at the Gauteng Department of Health, was shot dead outside her Johannesburg home in August 2021 while cooperating with an investigation into COVID-19 PPE procurement corruption. Six men were later convicted of the killing, but the individuals who allegedly hired them have not been charged.

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  Paul Roux, Free State, South Africa · 2020

  Killing of Brendin Horner

  Brendin Horner, a 21-year-old farm manager in South Africa's Free State province, was found tortured and strangled to death near Paul Roux in October 2020. Two men charged in connection with his death were acquitted in November 2021 after DNA evidence failed to link them to the killing.

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