Friday, February 15, 2008

Two sexual predators

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Sithole

The first in the Valentine's Day recollection of vicious sexual predators is Moses Sithole, responsible for the murders of 37 women and one child in South Africa, a nation plagued with violent crime. In a post-apartheid South Africa, Sithole conned impoverished women into his company by offering them employment, then led them to an isolated field, raped and strangled them. Sithole was the African Ted Bundy, deceptively charming to those who met him, and unspeakably cruel to his victims. Sithole, like Bundy, blamed all women for the wrongs inflicted on him by his mother. Also, when a woman accused him of a rape he swore he didn't commit, Sithole began his murder spree after being released from prison. In his mind, yet another woman had screwed him over, and he wanted revenge on all women. In the minds of the more rational, murdering women to correct a supposedly false rape accusation appears counterintuitive. If any authorities thought Sithole might be innocent, that feeling evaporated when they saw how brutally Sithole murdered his female victims. "I was wrongly accused of rape by a woman, so I'll kill 37 women and one woman's child to get back at women and prove my innocence." It makes no sense, but that's just the warped logic characteristic of serial killers.
On Investigation Discovery a while back (one of my favorite cable channels), I saw a show about a serial rapist who, right before his arrest, went by the name Ian Thorne-Green. His real name, which I don't remember, was revealed when Thorne-Green's crimes were matched to a string of other sexual assaults. As far as I know, he never killed anyone, except his domineering mother, who he beat to death with a baseball bat during an argument, but his female victims were left in critical condition. Like Ted Bundy and Moses Sithole, Thorne-Green was charming to the point where he could lure unsuspecting women to their doom. Even the arresting officers were disarmed by Thorne-Green's pleasantness and intelligence. I wish I could remember more about this case, or find something about it, but all my searches have come up empty.

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