The sound of clanging metal from steel cell doors echoed through courtroom 10 at the Johannesburg magistrate’s court.
Spectators on the cold brown benches put on masks and scarves as a slender man in light blue crocs and a navy tracksuit made his way from the cells to the dock for his third court appearance.
Sifiso Mkhwanazi, 20, stood with his hands folded behind his back. He was being charged with one count of premeditated murder.
The young man with soft-looking manicured hands has declined to apply for bail, with the matter postponed to December 7. He was arrested on October 9, when he was linked to the discovery of six bodies at a building in a quiet industrial area next to the M2 bridge in downtown Johannesburg.
On that Sunday, the stench of decomposing bodies prompted residents to call police to the building on Stevenson Road, near the Faraday taxi rank. One body was found in an industrial skip, another in a room inside the building, two more bodies were found in wheelie bins and the other two bodies were discovered in vans parked outside the building.
During one of his court appearances, Bandile*, 24, stood in the corridor outside the courtroom watching as a crying woman described how for weeks a man would pick up sex workers on Sundays. These women would never return to work. Visibly upset, Bandile left. When we met at a park in Soweto opposite Isaac Morrison High School, he explained how he’s related to the 20-year-old facing the murder charge.
“His mother is my father’s mam’khulu [grandmother]. So he’s my uncle, but I don’t accept that because we grew up together, so I call him brother. I know him, he’s not capable of this. The person being described is a different person to the guy I know. He doesn’t even have a tattoo, or the dreads or a gold tooth that some of the women are saying he has. They’re describing a very different person, they’ve got the wrong person. They’re saying he’s tall, but he’s not even that tall,” Bandile says.
Joining us at the park is Bandile’s younger sister, Ayanda*, who says like the rest of the family she’s also shocked by the revelation that her relative stands accused of killing someone and possibly other women believed to be sex workers. The pair describe the suspect as an introvert. They refer to him by his family nickname, “Boyoyo”, which means “boy”.
He is a quiet person. Some of his friends are still surprised, in fact we’re all shocked. We’re not saying he didn’t do it, or that he did, but this just doesn’t sound like the Boyoyo we grew up with.
— Sifiso Mkhwanazi's niece
“He is very isolated, he doesn’t like a crowd. Some of his friends are still surprised, in fact we’re all shocked. We’re not saying he didn’t do it, or that he did, but this just doesn’t sound like the Boyoyo we grew up with.
“He liked watching sport and playing soccer. You’d always find him at home just chilling with his mother and sister. In fact I’d have to beg him to just go out with us to buy ice lollies, and while we walked he was always quiet, just listening to us,” Bandile says.
According to his relatives, Mkhwanazi moved around a lot. He has spent time in Ladysmith in KwaZulu-Natal, where his late mother is from, and in Soweto, with his maternal family, and finally settled in Fordsburg, Johannesburg.
Growing up in Soweto, Mkhwanazi went to Emdeni Secondary School but dropped out in grade 10. After surviving a car accident in primary school, the young man spent some time in hospital. Raised in a Muslim home, he adhered to Islamic practices and, according to Bandile, didn’t smoke or drink.
“He was snobbish and boring, he didn’t speak a lot, and he liked being alone. He was Muslim, but he was still a kasi child, he was ghetto. We would chill like this in the park. He liked being a mechanic, he liked fixing cars. We are struggling to believe this, it’s not like him. He didn’t even have a girlfriend growing up,” says Ayanda.
The two allude to years of difficulty and abandonment, which worsened when their aunt, Mkhwanazi's mother, died a few years ago.
Mkhwanazi and his sister, a writer, were living in Ladysmith at the time, but after their mother’s death, he was left to fend for himself when his sister relocated to Cape Town after she found a job at a Muslim publication.
He always loved cars and was passionate about fixing them, so he started working at his father’s panel-beater shop as a mechanic.
Mkhwanazi was the “cheeseboy” in the family, which is township slang for someone who is spoilt. Growing up, he always had cash and would freely spend it on friends and family. He would often buy kotas for everyone. But his favourite meal was a “quantum”, an unsliced loaf of bread filled with chips, cheese, polony, Russians and a fried egg.
Ayanda said the relationship between Mkhwanazi and his father was strained.
In an SABC interview shortly after the arrest, the man, wearing a black motorbike helmet, spoke out harshly against his son.
“I want to disown him, really. I don’t even want anybody to attach him to me ... we are really shocked,” the man said to the broadcaster.
It was this interview that alerted the family to Mkhwanazi being arrested for murder.
As we sit on a rock in the Soweto park, Bandile took out his phone and showed me what he claims was his last WhatsApp chat with Mkhwanazi. They spoke on October 6 about cars then again on Saturday, the day before the arrest.
His last message to Bandile reads: “How’s life big brother?”
Bandile sent Mkhwanazi a WhatsApp message on Monday morning, simply saying “sho” after he heard the news reports.
“I called him six times and the phone just kept on ringing, it was unlike him not to answer my calls,” Bandile says.
This isn’t the young man’s first prison stint. Police spokesperson Brig Brenda Muridili confirmed the accused was arrested on a charge of rape in June 2021. The victim then withdrew the case in February 2022, and the young man was released from prison in April 2022.
According to his family, the months he spent in prison didn’t change the young man. In fact, it had the opposite impact.
When they last saw him in July, he shared dreams of opening his own “chop shop” and going back to school to get his matric certificate.
To the group of 30 women who attended his court appearance, Mkhwanazi is the monster who allegedly killed a fellow sex worker.
But to his family, he is the quiet soccer loving mechanic who bought everyone kotas.
* Not their real names.
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