The alleged serial rapist that is being sought by the police in connection with 58 cases in Ekurhuleni, dating back from 2012, is also linked to three other incidents that happened last week.
A 16-year-old girl has become the latest victim to fall prey to a serial rapist who is believed to have been targeting women in Ekurhuleni for nine years.
The girl was raped in her Crystal Park home last week after the perpetrator posed as a delivery man.
The rapist mainly operates in Benoni's eastern areas, including Daveyton, Etwatwa, Putfontein and Crystal Park.
The mother of the teen said her daughter was still trying to come to terms with the incident. The mother and her child cannot be named due to the nature of the crime.
She said her daughter was approached by the rapist on the streets. He claimed to have been sent to her house to deliver soap that her mother ordered in December.
“She said the man was hostile and said he did not have a lot of time. He said he didn’t want her to ask him a lot of questions and that they should go to our house. My daughter gave her phone to her boyfriend’s sibling and left with the man,” the mother said.
The mother alleged that the perpetrator could have known that she was not at home. She said her daughter’s boyfriend found it odd that her daughter had given his sibling her phone.
“He [boyfriend] left his house to look for my daughter and he was accosted by three men in a van. They kidnapped him and dropped him off at a veld while the other guy was raping my daughter in my own house,” she said.
This latest rape has prompted police to offer an undisclosed cash reward for the arrest of the perpetrator.
Police spokesperson Cpt Mavela Masondo said police have mobilised maximum resources in the investigation of the teenager's rape.
"We decided to include cash reward to anyone who can urgently assist the police with information that could lead to the apprehension of the alleged serial rapist believed to be in his late 20s."
Masondo said it is believed that the same suspect may be behind the attempted rape of another woman in the same area a few days earlier, as well as another rape that took place last week at Etwatwa.
"The investigation of several rape cases reported as far back as 2012 at different police stations in Ekurhuleni, suggests the probability of a serial rapist that has been terrorising women in Benoni, Daveyton, Etwatwa, Putfontein and Crystal Park," said Masondo.
Police said the victims in these cases aged between 12 and 20 years old.
Victims of the Ekurhuleni rapist, who previously spoke to Sowetan, gave different modus operandi employed by the culprit. They said it appeared as though he stalked some of his victims.
A mother of another girl, aged 18, yesterday said her daughter was raped in 2017 at their Etwatwa home.
The man gained entry into their home by claiming to be a contract worker employed by the Ekurhuleni metro to check on home geysers as the city was due to roll out solar geysers in the township.
“We are scared because he has not been arrested since he raped my daughter. My daughter has not been able to cope with this and she is scared because she does not know what is going to happen and whether this guy might attack her again,” she said.
Another parent, whose daughter was 15 when she was raped in 2016, said she hoped the police would be able to apprehend the rapist.
“He pounced on her when she was on her way back from school with her friends. We hope the police are able to arrest him soon because he is getting away with murder,” said the mother.
