Elias Xitavhudzi (1 Viewer)

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Elias Xitavhudzi

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A.K.A.: "Pangaman"

Classification: Serial killer
Characteristics: Rape - Mutilation
Number of victims: 16
Date of murders: 1960's
Date of birth: ???
Victims profile: White women
Method of murder: Beating with machete
Location: Atteridgeville, South Africa
Status: Sentenced to death. Executed



Elias Xitavhudzi was a serial killer who murdered 16 people in Atteridgeville, South Africa in the 1960s. Targeting only white females in a strictly-segregated community, his killing spree caused a tremendous sensation locally.

Prior to his capture, he acquired the nickname "Pangaman", panga being a local word for the machete with which he mutilated his victims. Upon capture, he was immediately sentenced to death and executed. However, Xitavhudzi was to be only the second in a series of at least a half-dozen serial killers to have plagued the township of Atterdgeville. (Newton 1999, p. 246)

Xitavhudzi, Elias

One of half a dozen serial killers spawned by the South African township of Atteridgeville in modern times, Elias Xitavhudzi was nicknamed "Pangaman" prior to capture, after the long, broad-bladed knife he used to kill and mutilate his 16 female victims.

Occurring in the 1960s, Xitavhudzi's crimes were doubly traumatic for strictly segregated Atteridgeville, since the victims were white and their killer turned out to be black. Upon capture, Xitavhudzi was swiftly tried and sentenced to death, but his spirit lives on in Atteridgeville, which continuas to produce vicious stalkers on a regular basis-most recently, the still unidentified "Atteridgeville Mutilator."

Early life
Sithole was born in Vosloorus, a poor neighbourhood of Boksburg in apartheid-era South Africa. When he was five, his father died, and his mother abandoned the family. Sithole and his siblings spent the next three years in an orphanage, where he later said they were mistreated. He ran away back to his mother, who sent him back to the orphanage. He eventually moved in with his older brother.

He began raping women in his twenties, claiming three victims before one finally testified against him. He was sent to prison, during which he himself was sexually assaulted by other prisoners. His murder spree began in 1994, shortly after his release.


Murders
Sithole would gain access to victims by pretending to be a businessman and offering them work, going so far as to invent a fictional charity organization. Once he had gained their trust, he would offer to walk them through a veld (an Afrikaans word literally meaning "field") to the "business headquarters" until they were out of sight and hearing range; he would then overpower, rape and strangle them. By 1995, he had claimed over 30 victims, igniting a nationwide panic

Capture
In August 1995, Sithole was identified as having been seen with one of the victims; police soon discovered details of his fake business and previous rape conviction. Panicked, he went on the run. He called journalist Tamsen de Beer and identified himself as the killer. At the third call he gave De Beer a number to call back. The police rushed to the pay phone he was calling from, but they were too late. Shortly after that Sithole contacted his brother-in-law, who promised him to help him get a gun and arranged a meeting. The brother-in-law notified the police, but Sithole sensed a trap at the meeting spot and ran. Police shot him twice when he charged them with an axe, wounding him before taking him into custody. He eventually confessed to the murders

Trial and imprisonment
On December 5, 1997, Sithole was sentenced to 50 years imprisonment for each of the 38 murders, 12 years imprisonment for each of the 40 rapes, and five years imprisonment for each of the six robberies. Since his sentences run consecutively, the total effective sentence is thus one of 2,410 years. Justice David Carstairs ordered that Sithole would be required to serve at least 930 years before being eligible for parole (in around 2927). He is incarcerated in C-Max, the maximum security section of Pretoria Central Prison.

He was reported in 2000 to have AIDS.
 
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