MALAIKA MAHLATSI | Thought of dangerous jail escapees roaming the streets is chilling

After having dinner at a restaurant in Jean Crossing shopping centre, Centurion, I rushed to the toilets. As I made my way down the eerily isolated passage that leads to the toilets, I heard footsteps behind me. They were slow at first, as if the person was just sauntering towards their destination. But suddenly, they got louder and closer – so close that I could feel the man’s warm breath on my exposed shoulder.

My heart was pounding, but I knew that I was stuck, because the only way out was where I had come in, and there was no way I could go back there with this menacing character behind me. My instincts told me to run as fast as I could and lock myself inside the women’s toilets. But before I could plan this properly, the man’s hand grabbed me by the back of my neck, so forcefully that I immediately spun around. And there, standing right in front of me, a coy smile on his handsome face, was Thabo Bester, the man known as “the Facebook rapist”.

In the second that it took me to register what was about to happen, I was woken up by the sound of colossal waves violently crashing against rocks. I was not in Centurion standing face-to-face with a convicted murderer and rapist, I was safely in my hotel bed in Cape Town. My encounter with “the Facebook rapist” had been a dream.

I have never met the man, but after a week of seeing his photos plastered all over the news, newspapers and social media every single day as the story of his daring escape from a prison in Mangaung unfolds, his face has become engraved in the gallery of my mind. It is etched there, a hovering shadow in my subconscious. I dreamt of a man I do not know. The only reason that this happened is that he is occupying my mind – as I have no doubt he’s occupying the minds of many women who realise just how close to danger we exist.

Twelve years ago, Bester was convicted of two counts of rape and one of murder and sentenced to an effective life sentence. But last year, he was reported to have committed suicide in the Mangaung Correctional Centre by setting himself on fire in his cell. But an investigation by GroundUp has since revealed that Bester escaped from prison and has been living in the upmarket suburb of Hyde Park in Johannesburg.

He had also been running a multimillion-rand scam from behind prison walls. The charred remains found in his cell have yet to be identified, but reports indicate that the person had died of blunt force trauma to the head and was already deceased when the fire was started. How a cadaver got into prison in the first place is yet to be revealed – as is how Bester was able to conduct video conferences dressed in suits when inmates are supposed to wear prison issued uniforms.

The only thing not in dispute is this: a dangerous rapist and murderer escaped from prison, the police knew about it for months, and the man is yet to be recaptured.

Bester is one of several inmates who have escaped from prison over the past few years. Between 2020 and 2022, at least 139 inmates managed to escape. A significant number of these had been awaiting trial or convicted of murder, attempted murder and sexual crimes including rape. Some of the escapees are yet to be recaptured.

The thought is chilling, especially for us women. It means we live among violent criminals and someday, like the victims of Bester, could be going to meetings or having lunch with such people, and never know it. It’s a gut-wrenching thought.