Serial killer from Mokopane confesses in court

Self-confessed serial rapist and killer John Mabuti Sape, 41 of Mokopane this week told the Pretoria High Court court how he had strangled his first victim with her scarf after raping her.
And while he claimed to have had different reasons for killing each victim, he told the court how he strangled his second victim with the cord of her cellphone charger after raping her. To strangle his third victim, he used a shoelace. 
Agnes Masemola was killed almost two weeks after Sape moved in with her, her husband and her parents. He got into a fist fight with her husband after fetching him from a local shebeen on Masemola’s request.
He told the court he was upset because of the fight and forced Masemola on the bed and raped her.
“I realised she could tell her husband, I decided to kill her. “I grabbed the scarf which was around her head and strangled her until she no longer breathed.”
He said he had reported to the police station the next morning when he heard the woman was dead and was arrested, but the case against him was later withdrawn.
He killed his next victim nearly four years later. Rebecca Madiba, of Mokopane, was also a teacher.
Sape said he became annoyed with her, as he knew her well, but she rejected him, saying she had heard that he had killed a woman.
“She said she wanted nothing to do with me. I lost my temper, grabbed her and pushed her to the floor of her bedroom. I forcefully undressed her and raped her. I, in a state of anger, grabbed her cellphone charger out of an electrical outlet and strangled her.”
Sape was not arrested for this murder and six months later, on March 14, 2006, he strangled his next victim with a shoelace. Lindiwe Masangu was a prostitute and he killed her at the Nest Inn in what was then Andries Street in Pretoria. He believed she purposefully left the room they were in unlocked so that someone else could enter and steal his belongings.
“This is a common occurrence at brothels,” he said. “I became angry and lost my temper. I took a shoelace and strangled her.”
Following his guilty plea, Judge Selby Baqwa convicted him on three counts of murder, two of rape and two of theft.