Rhodes Park murder suspects identified from CCTV
A police informer identified six of the alleged Rhodes Park killers from CCTV footage taken from houses surrounding the park.
|||Johannesburg – Video footage showing the Rhodes Park rape and murder-accused running away was supposed to be shown in the High Court sitting at the Palm Ridge Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, but owing to a technical glitch the viewing was postponed.
Patrick Murphy who is member Community Policing Forum told the court that after he received a message about the incident which took place at the park, he went around the houses in the area surrounding the park and asked to view their closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage.
He said he found the footage incriminating the men to the crime but said that the time on the camera was right but the date was wrong, it was one day ahead.
Prosecutor Mutuwa Nengovhela asked Murphy if it’s common for dates to be wrong on CCTV machines, to which Murphy said it is normal.
“It only means the person installing the CCTV got the date wrong because the system doesn’t change itself,” Murphy said.
“At 19:07 I saw someone running past the camera and slowed down a walk. Few seconds later four males went past and one was holding a pair of shoes. Another few seconds later one more was running and four minutes later another two ran past.”
Murphy told the court that he downloaded the footage and then contacted police and informed them about the video.
“I showed the constable the video and he showed his informer the footage.”
He said the informer identified six of the men by their street names and said they stayed around Yeoville. He did not know the other two but he knew that one of them is Zulu and stays around Rhodes Park.
After a couple of days Murphy said he received a call from the informer telling him that he spotted one of the accused in Yeoville. He drove to Yeoville with a police officer where they arrested 25-year-old Thabo Nkala.
He also identified Nkala as the male who was holding a pair of shoes on the footage.
“At the police station, Nkala admitted to the robbery but said he didn’t rape [the women] and he said they drowned the men in the lake but didn’t tie their hands,” Murphy said.
Judge Papi Masopa agreed to postpone the matter to Wednesday after the investigating officer experienced problems when he had to play the footage.
Nkala, Edmore Ndlovu, 23, Mduduzi Lawrence Mathibela, 32, are allegedly part of a 12-man gang that accosted and robbed the two couples on October 17, 2015.
Earlier, Mathibela was furious and said the medical doctor lied during his testimony and also accused him of insulting him and calling him a dog when we was taking his DNA samples.
The gang forced the husbands into the lake where they drowned and the gang sexually assaulted and raped their wives.
Both women have already told the court how they were attacked as their husbands drowned in the nearby lake.
The other suspects are still on the run.
Reports suggest that two others have been arrested in neighbouring Zimbabwe, where they are awaiting extradition to South Africa.
African News Agency