As disturbing as these stories are, I’m a die-hard fan of true crime.

It ‘fascinates’ me how diabolical people can be. It also never ceases to amaze me how dumb some criminals are.

You’d think with all the true crime and detective shows out there, everyone would know the 101 of things that are going to get you busted.

Like going to Walmart and buying bleach, bin bags, a shovel, and a chainsaw in the middle of the night – all while their CCTV is recording you.

In one particularly harrowing case I recently watched, a husband took his baby with him to the store to buy his ‘get-rid-of-the-body’ kit after he’d murdered the child’s mother! He’d reported her missing and sent all the customary caring, concerned voice messages to her phone – duh, another rookie mistake.

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Cold cases are the most enthralling; when killers are brought to book, sometimes decades after the crime, because a detective refused to let it go and ensured the reopening of the case.

It’s mind-boggling what detectives in South Africa must have on their plate, and I suppose this speaks to the ongoing lawlessness of society. The chances you’ll get away with murder in this country are very high, so why not?

We’re not even dismembering and burying bodies; we just shoot people point-blank in their car in the middle of the street in broad daylight and drive off.

We rape and plunder as if our lives depended on it, kill and abuse humans and animals without flinching, drive drunk, skip red traffic lights, overload buses and taxis, tear down and burn infrastructure and public facilities until there’s nothing left – and then simply walk away.

Countless families are waiting for justice for crimes – recent and many, many years ago.

On many of the true crime shows I watch, they take matters into their own hands to help speed up the investigation by putting up billboards on major routes with their loved ones’ photos and the words ‘someone out there knows’.

How true is that!

Someone out there definitely knows!

Criminals have friends, families, and other social connections who would (or should) notice when they’re suddenly driving an expensive car, wearing a smart jacket they didn’t have yesterday, or selling a TV they never owned.

Do you know who has a shiny silver sports trophy you remember reading about in a story in the Boksburg Advertiser after the Boksburg Squash Club was burgled and horrendously vandalised over December?

Or the ‘hit’ in Rondebult Road where a father was gunned down in his car in front of his two young children?

Or the butcher of pigs in Mapleton?

Or the mass shooting in Reiger Park?

Someone out there knows. Are you that person? What do you know? Why are you silent?

If YOU did nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear or hide. Do the right thing. Evil thrives when good men do nothing.

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