Thabang Victor Rampai (32) was sentenced to four life sentences and an additional 15 years by the High Court of South Africa, Gauteng Local Division, Johannesburg on Tuesday. Rampai who was convicted on multiple charges pleaded guilty to all charges.

GRAVEYARD

Rampai's targeted unsuspecting women who visited their relatives' graves at the Roodepoort cemetery in the West Rand. He would camp at the Roodepoort, wait for the women, grab them by the necks and force them to the ground.  His reign of terror started in May 2016 until his arrest in 2018. During his trial, the court heard that he would then instruct his victims to undress and then rape them. In one incident that happened on 10 March 2018, the victim was cleaning her late husband's grave when he grabbed her from behind and stabbed her with a screwdriver, demanding her cellphone, raped her and fled the scene.

THE CHARGES

Rampai was convicted of six counts of rape, two counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances, a count of assault with intent to cause grievous bodily harm and a count of attempted murder. During the trial, state advocate Nakwena Mokwatedi argued that Rampai pleaded guilty to the charges because evidence against him was overwhelming. 

EVIDENCE 

 Mokwatedi also told the court that Rampai could not dispute the DNA evidence that linked him to all previously unsolved cases of women that were robbed and raped at the Roodepoort graveyard. "The court must never allow perpetrators such as the offender to create an environment of terror and insecurity in the minds of innocent citizens, therefore he deserves to be removed from society."  Mokwatedi said. Judge Cassim Moosa who was presiding over the matter ordered that the accused's name be entered into the National Register for Sex Offenders and deemed him unfit to possess a firearm.