PODCAST | Axe killer: The serial crimes of Phindile Joseph Ntshongwana

In March 2011, a series of horrific murders terrified the people of Kwazulu-Natal.

Within just a few days, four people had been attacked on the streets and butchered with an axe. The attacks were so violent that many of the victims sustained completing severing of body parts.

Although a South African Police Service task team would locate and arrest the perpetrator within days of the first murder, it would emerge that he should never have been on the streets to commit those crimes in the first place.

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Phindile Joseph Ntshongwana had already been identified as a dangerous and violent alleged criminal in November 2010. One of his first surviving victims had handed over the man’s identity document and address to police at that time, but he had never been arrested.

Ntshongwana would claim to have no recollection of the crimes he was accused of, though  — and, he said, if he had committed them, his lifelong mental illness was the reason.

In episode 106 of True Crime South Africa, we explore the serial crimes of former rugby player Phindile Ntshongwana and the trial that would set a precedent for future cases involving defendants with diagnosable mental illnesses.

For more episodes, click here.

Community Intervention Centre (24-hour trauma helpline): 082-821-3447

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E-mail the show: info@killeraudiocreations.com  

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