Man sentenced to four life terms after series of rapes at Roodepoort cemetery
Thabang Victor Rampai was convicted on six counts of rape and multiple counts of robbery and assault.
A 32-year-old has been given four life sentences following his conviction for a series of rapes he committed between 2016 and 2018.
Dubbed the ‘Graveyard Rapist’, Thabang Victor Rampai was sentenced in the Gauteng Local Division of the High Court of South Africa situated in Johannesburg on Tuesday, February 28.
Rampai was convicted on six counts of rape, two counts of robbery with aggravating circumstances, a count of assault with intent to do grievous bodily harm, and a count of attempted murder.
The convicted rapist’s crimes were committed between May 2016 and March 2018 at a Roodepoort cemetery where his modus operandi would be to attack women at the place of mourning.
“He pounced on women who visited their relatives’ graves, grabbing their necks and forcing them to the ground. He would then instruct them to undress and rape them,” stated Phindi Mjonondwane, National Prosecuting Authority Regional Spokesperson for the local Gauteng Local Division.
In one incident cited by the prosecution, Rampai raped a woman on March 10, 2018, who was cleaning her late husband’s grave. Rampai attacked his victim from behind stabbing her with a screwdriver and demanding her cellphone before raping her and fleeing the scene.
“State Advocate, Makwena Mokwatedi argued that the accused pleaded guilty to all the charges because the evidence against him was overwhelming. She added that the accused 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,” confirmed Mjonondwane.
The State Advocate stated the court must never allow perpetrators such as the offender to create an environment of terror and insecurity in the minds of innocent citizens by removing them from society.
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Judge Cassim Ismail Moosa ordered that the accused’s name be entered into the National Register for Sex Offenders and deemed him unfit to possess a firearm.
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