YESTERDAY marked 31 years since Empangeni’s most notorious serial killer, Simon Mpungose – aka ‘The Hammerman’ – was sentenced to death.
Often a thrilling tale shared by many of Empangeni’s townsfolk, 35-year-old Mpungose was given the name ‘Hammerman’ because he would break into homes in the dead of night and kill the occupants with a hammer before robbing them of their possessions.
It was the manner in which he killed his victims, as well as his apparent psychotic behaviour, that gained Mpungose international attention.
Internationally acclaimed online magazine ‘True Crime Library’ noted that in December 1983, Mpungose killed Graham and Margaretha Macaskill, both prison officers, and in February the following year he killed Justin and Terri Smith.
When he was brought to trial in November 1984, shortly after his arrest that same year, the Empangeni court was told that Mpungose attacked many other people during violent robberies, but never touched the children of his victims.
During the trial Mpungose stated that he wanted to die as he had a hard life, complicated by the actions of people who did not understand his plight.
Mr Justice Broome could find no extenuating circumstances, noting that Mpungose covered his hands with socks during the robberies to avoid leaving fingerprints and the fact that the defendant was a psychopath, was not a mitigating factor in law.
He sentenced him to hang, whereupon Mpungose threw his blue tracksuit into the public gallery, shouted, and threatened to expose his penis to the court before he was restrained with handcuffs.
He was hanged a year later on Friday, 29 November 1985 in Pretoria.
In 1994 Mail &Guardian journalist Cathy Powers highlighted some of the country’s worst serial killing cases, placing Mpungose’s case first on the list.
Powers noted that Mpungose’s motive appeared to be racial.
According to Rian Malan, author of ‘My Traitor’s Heart,’ Mpungose told the Empangeni court that he was fulfilling a dream he had had in prison 11 years earlier, in which he grew larger and stronger, broke out of jail and obliterated all the whites in his path.
Refusing a defence, he said: ‘It (the murders) is because of what I have witnessed happening to my fellow black men and also to me because of all that was done to me by the white people.’
Read the full article, with a first hand account from a survivor, in tomorrow’s ZO Weekender edition.
HAVE YOUR SAY
Like our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter.
For news straight to your phone invite us:
WhatsApp – 072 069 4169
Instagram – zululand_observer
